Please cool night, quench the fumes
And smother the red heat
Where sleep is the only boon
Before the footsteps signal terror
Why do my eyes must fixate
Upon the thin yellow line
Streaming from the door
Where the rest is darkness
With my blankets curled
Up to my tiny face
Black darkness is safer
Before the footsteps come
Decades later and the dreams
The nightmares, the kicking
Waking from all those years
The fresh open wounds
Amid celestial spheres only
To go, kicking at nothing again
Eventually the cornered tiger bites
Yet the monster’s gone, never to be seen
Left with my memory
For love, a thin soul
Wide eyed and hungry
Chewing my nails remembering
How fast I ran from the burning home
ESSENTIAL 