Dawn

The night’s dark feebly tries to cling to the horizon like a baby snatched from its mother’s breast
Infanticidal fingers of the dawn choking the life out of her with the sickening false hope of a new day
Must I awaken to greet this next step in the slow march to death?
Only in my dreams do I feel truly alive anymore
In that slumberscape, where time lurches from its tracks like a runaway train
Even the nightmares are a labour of affection, love letters to a vision too horrific for the waking world
A gift from myself, to myself

How this indifferent world of cold shoulders and people drowning in their own reflection gained the distinction of “real life” is beyond me
Where time marches like an infantry of seconds, minutes and hours
And our only weapon is the white flag of surrender
Begging for mercy that we might be allowed to age with a measure of grace
Eventually bargaining that we would accept even just an absence of pain
Or perhaps to trade one for the other, as we cut, suction and inject away the weathers of time

But struggle or surrender, their cannon fodder is infinite and relentless
And perhaps the war is itself the dream from which we must truly wake
To find ourselves somewhere unburdened by endless rising dawns