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Feb 2020
Jack wakes up in a panic, he’s manic.

He convulses on the bed,

His arms swinging in defensive manoeuvres,

Struggling against violent illusions in the night.



He’s tired, exhausted.

The nightmares had come again

And laid their cold grip on his skin

And now he has to begin again to forget.

His bed’s soaked in sweat,

His head’s pounding and drowning in the sounds he feels surrounding him.  

But there’s only silence.



He shakes his head

And tries to dispel the blaring sirens

And the flashing in the back of his eyes  

But the light and sound won’t quit.

He reaches for the tabletop to his side

And grabs a bottle empty of a bottle top  

And downs it.

The sharp taste of cheap whisky

Burns his throat and helps to dull the conflict in his head. If only for a moment.



Taking a look around  

He notices

He’s naked.  

The clothes he slept in

Were swept off in the night

And thrown to the side.

His white skin is bruised and ******

Marked by the copper claws  

Of the nightmare spawn  

Trying to break through his form

And escape.

But the dead skin and red rings around his fingers tell a different story  

Of blood and gore  

But not from the paranormal  

But more of an internal war.



See, Jack’s not sure what’s real.

He can’t quite distinguish the line between fiction and fact.  

He sees it every morning like a crack running down his mirror separating his heart from his head.  

But when he reaches out and tries to touch it  

The green slithers of reflection withhold any consolation.  

The jagged glass pierces his skin  

And he bleeds.



He bleeds the way his mum used to sing whilst she rocked him to sleep.



He bleeds the ink from the love letters he wrote to the girl who he gave his first kiss.



He bleeds the tears that gushed from his eyes when she gave his first kiss away with a laugh.



You can see it, dripping down his palms

And painting the floor  

In a mosaic of blood.

Each panel a Scarlett red petal  

Coming together to form  

A twisting flower

Sprouting out from the ground and wrapping its vines around his legs,

Trapping him in this  

Labyrinth.



His head’s not right.

There’s something twisted in the cables

That’s left him unable to think.

He can’t see the world like everyone else;

In his head, it’s a game

But the pieces don’t match up

And the board is aflame

And it doesn’t ******* matter

Cause everyone’s cheating anyway.



So, there he stands,

In front of the mirror,

With the ground creeping up his legs

And slowly dragging him down.

His weight teetering  

On the line of intrusive light  

Refracting off the silver glass

And turning the cuts and scars into gold.

Around him,

Flowers are bursting out of the floor

And cradling every inch of his skin

In a massacre of colours.

For a second, his body tenses,

And then relaxes into the aroma of Spring.

He glances back towards the mirror

And can no longer see himself.

He has been encompassed in a coffin of life.
Sam Tate
Written by
Sam Tate  21/M/Kent, UK
(21/M/Kent, UK)   
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