in the middle of the night

on nights like this i remember days like that
where dreams color inside the lines of nightmares
fuzzy shadows dance on the walls as they tiptoe across the carpet to the head of the bed
you place your hands on her forehead feeling her warmth in your fingertips
maybe tonight you'll spare her
maybe you'll be too tired to wear her out
maybe the wish she dreamed upon a star will come true tonight and you'll pass her by
if only dreams came true that fast
you put your seething lips on hers
her eyelids tighten and somewhere she believes if she stays still enough, you'll leave
but you don't
she needs to breathe and her respiratory functions remind you that she's alive enough to still be considered prey
and so you feast on her quietly
invading her space, taking all that you can handle
leaving nothing for her to rebuild or reform
her insides ridden with litter left over from hurricane katrina and her spirit shaken like haiti
we forget how man and land can be the same humanity, resembling one another in likeness and loss
nonetheless, wreckage remains
there are some thieves that steal childhoods
invaluable moments of time that have a statute of limitations in the courtroom but not in the mind
and whether he's there or not, when she closes her eyes to go to sleep, she always feels his hand on her forehead.

someone sent me this at the right time.