When I close my eyes

When I close my eyes I abdicate all control: I am at the mercy of my own twisting mind.

I never can tell, when I close my eyes, what will emerge from the darkness.  Will it be something beautiful or terrible?  A dream or a nightmare?  When I dream, I dream in color, in three dimensional surround sound.  My mind creates a world so rich in detail, there are smells and textures, and sometimes even tastes.  All these overwhelmed by pervasive emotion: the catch is what emotion will dominate. 

In that the beauty of my dreams is unsurpassed, I revel in them, the smell of lilac, the touch of velvet and warm skin.  The vibrant richness of color, oil crayon reds, powder chalk purples, glowing flesh tones almost feverish.  Heat creeps through me, bathing me in pleasure.  The light in his eyes, the whisper of breath on my cheek.  Yearning and searching; finding perfection, an illusion but compelling despite its transitive nature.  The sweetness of berries, the sound of water and birdsong.  Dreaming of strong arms, hard kisses, that irresistible scent of man.  Not caring that it is all a dream, must be a dream, no reality could run so smoothly.  Yet even in dreams there is the perverse humor that is my mind.  The chase, seeing him, wanting him, never being alone.  Surrounded by friends, frustrated by them being there, being such good friends.  The power of need, compelling me to follow him, balancing the sorrow of missing friends I never see.  Biology wins, the driving nature of need overwhelms: my subconscious bows to the fire in my blood. 

The reverse side, the nightmare that terrifies.  Being chased, unable to run, feet literally rooted in the ground.  Seeing the wolf creeping slowly toward me with hunger in his eye.  The same oil crayon red becoming squirting red ink - blood, thinner yet ever much richer, the pain of the tearing flesh, the despair at feeling that soft gray fur mat to sticky spikes of rust.  The heat of smooth hands, hitting, grabbing, roughly dragging, terror accelerates the pounding of my heart.  The burn of rough scrubbing, the sharp pinch of the needles, the hot fire of something burning in my veins, the taste of blood filling my mouth.  Watching them hurt, watching the van go off the bridge, seeing them die in front of me.  The stirring life inside me, still and become nothing.  So much anguish, fear that feeds itself.  Losing the ability to breathe and think, agony eclipsing everything else.     

Between them both the bittersweet.  My mother, riding with me in the car: both of us knowing she's dead, that when the car stops she'll disappear again.  Taking wrong turns, the sense of being lost slowly fills the car, lost in the dream, lost without her.  Playing with dogs long gone, with friends since forgotten.  Chasing him without catching, searching for something I can't name or explain, no matter how beautiful the surroundings, the search itself an exercise in futility.  Knowing the answer to life is written clearly on the page in front of me, trying to force my brain to recognize the words - pushing myself into wakefulness as the logical lobe surfaces to comply.  Waking with tears leaking from sandpaper eyes.

The insistent need for sleep ever pulls at me with boney fingers; the fear of the dark squeezing even tighter, strong bands of pressure.  Every night, fighting with both.  Sleep brings so much, rest being the least of it.  I cannot control, I cannot foresee - tonight will it be pain or pleasure?  Will I wake longing for more sleep, or bolt upright, heart pounding painfully?  Some nights it isn't worth the risk: better the pain of fatigue than the torture of my dreams.  Others only the hope that somewhere, between ecstasy and despair, there will be some sort of twilight nowhere, no dreams of any kind, where my mind can peacefully coalesce and bring relief to the burdens of daylight.  Dare I close my eyes, am I brave enough to face the dreams tonight?  Or will it be another night of wasted time and exhaustion?