I Have To Sleep To Escape My Nightmares. Poem by David Wright David

Others complain about pains experienced and pains caused. I humbly decline to participate in any of those such on going's because the statute of limitations on our endeavors is life long. But as you complain aimlessly, I cry behind closed doors. And I cry because there is no escaping the visions I see, when wandering throughout the creaking hallways of my mind, for any length of time. I miss my innocence, how long ago it seems, that he and I shared the same spirit, mind and body. Covered in shame and regret am I currently, for being caught thinking that life was one way back then, when now, to our dismay, it has truly panned out to be another. The voices echoing inside, have gotten so bad in fact, that I have to sleep to escape my nightmares.

Looking through the looking glass of my actions committed makes me human, but reminiscing on the deeds perpetrated, as if they were in real time, makes me look upon that me of back then, and nick name him, "demon". How hard we defended territories till the death, that would only be under our care and control for a short period. Children looking up to us and being trained and now, the monsters we left behind, terrorize the same streets we ran, with a sense of misplaced pride because that's the jersey we wore, when we schooled them to a game, that was never really worth playing at all. My sons and nephews, the killers that societies come to fear. And when I think about the part I played in their upbringing and all this carnage, I have to sleep to escape my nightmares.

Where does salvation lie for those who've committed wrongs, for what they felt were right reasons? And now that they know better, each does nothing more with their daily breaths, than to pass along the love and guidance, they wished they were given as kids and young adults but never were. Souls burning alive, as grown men walk with smiles on their faces and what appears to be not a care in the world. But what you see, trust me, isn't necessarily so. For the chickens of foul deeds, do come home to roost. If not in perceived, deserved prison time, than surely in thoughts of death being replayed, over and over and over again. So much nothing done, lives replaced with stories and children left with memories of their fathers, who they never really, because of us, got the chance to build relationships with. I'm sorry and I promise that I'm paying for my sins and to prove what I'm saying to be the truth, notice, that for any periods of peace within;

I have to sleep to escape my nightmares!