literature

My first nightmare

Deviation Actions

dreamingshadow's avatar
Published:
85 Views

Literature Text

I still remember my first nightmare.

It's nothing, Sarah, go back to bed. And sleep.

And every nightmare after that.
When I shook, with a blind death panic that used my own hands to grip me, she told me to get to bed. Turned the light off. So at least to her, I wasn't shaking any more.

I saw skeletons come alive and wield death at the ends of spears, and I knew no one would help me.

Twenty years, and...every time I felt myself become a skeleton, hunting myself with the power of death, I closed my eyes, to tell my child brain that eyes don't just fall out of sockets.

Under my breath, under onslaught, I cursed.
I hate you, mother.

You never held me.
You never cared.

All you cared about was yourself.

Twenty years, and...she looked me in the eyes for the first time without flinching.

I'm scared, Sarah. I'm dying.

Her words couched in clinical smelling pillows and a sense of inevitability.

Sarah...I'm scared...

Do you know how many times I've felt like I was dying, mother?

I switched the light off. Said, before I left,

It's nothing, mother, go back to bed. And sleep.

And I walked through a city of haunted bodies on the way home.

My lover, she tried to wrap me in her words. Brought warm arms to me under sheets while her breaths tumbled out with the sweetness of raspberries. Don't hold me, I told her. Got up. To face my own night, and let her face hers, alone.

Six months later I sat on the edge of the bed. Clinging to a freshly washed pillow and a sense of inevitability.

You never held me.
You never cared.

All you care about is yourself.


And then my lover left.

But I did care. I cared so much it hurt enough to drag nights into days.

I hate you mother. I'm having a nightmare, and no one will hold me, because your words in my mouth tell everyone,

Go to sleep, I'm nothing.

(06/04/14)

© 2014 - 2024 dreamingshadow
Comments0
Join the community to add your comment. Already a deviant? Log In