Conscious Nightmares
By: Emily McNealy
Total blackness, my eyes lack to see.
As panic arises, I stagger my feet.
Visions of creatures arise in the dark,
Deep in the shadows with forms still so stark.
Corporeal things my arms do evade,
I’m thrashing around and kicking my legs.
Where have I gone, if not insane?
In this despair I’ve lost my own name.
Ravenous monsters lean on my mind,
Twist and lurch and claw up my side.
I fling my body, there’s a stab in my back;
A light flickers on with a hum and a crack.
All my memories fall back into place,
No longer distanced by time and space,
A familiar empty I’ve existed before,
These mental tricks of death and war.
Not quite awake but not quite asleep,
This other plane I wade in so deep.
Blood to Dust
By: Emily McNealy
Life poured unto me from Her golden cup,
And my body grew from a speck
Then I wailed as the world opened up,
Umbilical cord wrapped around my neck
Quickly soon my old lips are dried;
An almost corpse of weakened air
Flickers of recognition have died
Empty eyes, wide, my stare
Not Haunting but Haunted
By: Emily McNealy
Looking glass it is not,
For that is not me
A ghost the reflection has brought,
Though my eyes may deceive
Gaunt bones stand in my stead,
His mouth open in pain
A wound agape on his head,
His face is blood red, a stain
His brows move with agony,
And orbs wide in anger,
Proof of our shared tragedy,
A death bell, its clangor
It’s not me in the mirror,
But I know the spirit still
His face can’t be clearer,
The man, by my hand, a life spilled
Seasons’ of Humanity
By: Emily McNealy
When the leaves change the trees,
Well, they root inside of me,
And take over all the weeds
Summer seeded in the reeds.
All the light may start to die,
But something else comes alive.
Sweet softness in its wake;
A breeze bones ache to shake.
It’s no spell the hunger yearns to quell,
But a deep desire. From heat it dwelled,
Now in the cool the fever simmers.
I learn the moon shines no dimmer.