Barbara Tate

A Long Way From Nowhere

I am afraid to fall asleep. The dream will come like it always does.

The old ones are coming, coming through the veil of trees, gathering around watchful fringes of a growing storm. The Watchful Ones wrapped in musty robes and crumbling linen file in trailing a fetid stench of damp earth and dead roses. Haunting eyes stare from melting features and hollowing sockets, bony fingers beckoning, arms reaching, closing in on midnight. I see them in the shadows, in lightning flashes.

I'll waken in a cold sweat and for a moment the dream will be reality. I'm not ready. I'm a long way from nowhere going along for the ride.

midnight sun
I can't outrun my shadow