I walk through a hallway, complete dark.
I am only aware that I’m in a boxy maze.
I wander through the rooms, guided by a pulling spirit,
Room after room down long corridors
With no light but a flickering candle that rests at the end of the wall and moves as I do.
I am lost. I curse it all. I sink down.
Until finally there is a room unlike others,
Finally a window. Moonlight.
Grass, long and wavy like on my childhood estate. Doesn’t grow here.
A child standing in that grass.
The figure, just a small shadow built of wisps, rises to the window.
I back up. I am afraid of the child’s face.
The child does not care for my fear.
The figure steps toward me. I run. Can’t run.
The room is suddenly illuminated,
Like stage lights rising.
Her face pierces me at last;
And she opens her mouth,
“Remember me, mom?”
I wake with a screech. Blessedly I am alone in my darkness,
A dark cracked by the streetlight so close.
“Remember me?”
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It was just a child I tell myself,
Just a child. Nothing to fear. 
After I get back to sleep
All that comfort goes away
Because now I’m in a big open room
A party. My seventeenth birthday. 
I was a Halloween baby and tonight oozes the sweltering heat no one likes
If my mom was here she’d stroke my hair
And tell me I have nothing to worry about 
But my mom isn’t here
If my dad was here he’d squeeze my shoulder 
And tell me to simply approach the situation with logic and factual reason
But my dad isn’t here
I’m alone, in this big crowded room
Of people here for my seventeenth birthday 
And I’m the only one not smiling
I must be the only one who says the gray
It’s actually closer to black, like smoke
As if someone set the ****** place on fire
A dark spirit. An evil presence. 
It coats the ceiling
It fills the corners
It swallows the doors
What it lacks is the smell of smoke
Overwhelming odor. Salt. 
Emotions. Broken promises. Love, dissipated. Fear. Very much alive.
It was never to be.
But it was just a child.
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Interlude
I’m still dreaming.
Still remembering.
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The Nightmare
The nightmare isn’t over yet;
The apartment isn’t empty.
There is a man in here with me
And he keeps touching me.
He forces me down to my knees,
He hurts me everyday now,
No more resting, he says.
I’ll never rest again.
The smoke is white this time
Infused with color like a crystal ball
It curls around itself
As it cowers in the corner,
The one with the couch.
That ****** couch.
Again- an odor. Salt.
I hate it here. Hate him.
Salt, stronger by the second.
Salt. It gets too heavy to bear.
The white smoke… moving
Swirls, swivels.
Turns out it has eyes
And unlike me, it isn’t afraid.
Stares me dead in the eye. Dead.
“Remember me, Mom?”
Screams. Salt. Swirling.