Nightmare's Waltz

My fear is a landscape of rotting corpses, each baring your face.

My fear is a sky of stormclouds, the black and purple of a ripe bruise.

Lightning crashes to the corpse-riddled earth and thunder splits the rank air.

The rain that falls is acidic blood.

Creatures swarm out of the darkness, their claws raking my flesh.

The rain is my blood.

My fear is panic, as my flesh is torn from my body

Only to reunite to slough off in a pungent rot.

I scream.

I wake, yet the nightmare follows me to reality.

Your pale specter stands beside my bed; hand upraised to touch my face.

I reach for you, seeking comfort.

The flesh and muscle disappear from your head revealing bloody skull beneath.

I scream.

You're gone.

My insanity brings the gargoyles of my room alive.

Not as protectors but as attackers.

With blood in their eyes and saliva dripping from their fangs.

Biting and tearing where they can.

I hide under the blankets to escape these monstrosities.

Then I find--There is No Escape.

Silence.

I hesitate to look out.

I slowly lower the blanket.

Death stands before me; we are no longer in my room.

A grand ballroom stretches around me, and I know

I am alone with Death in his terrible black-robed countenance.

Music is struck and we begin to dance.

I dance with Death until the clock strikes the midnight hour.

His hood is gently thrown back.

I see only you.

You lean in for a kiss.

I give it willingly.

I pull back slowly and in your place is Death again.

His skeletal arms are the ones that hold me close.

I begin to fall.

I see myself in my coffin, black roses all around.

I am comforted that I am well and truely dead.

My fear is at an end.

As is the Nightmare's Waltz.


A.J.Downey
11-14-1998