A Perculiar Dream

Wheels rolled down dropping off

new faces and familiar faces

in a place I’d known my whole life.

However the eyes of the faces

I remembered had a glare on them,

causing a glow in my soul

which shook my spine and terrified me.

Something about their eyes, their mechanical nature…

it was terrifying.

Smoke-filled bathrooms littered the place,

blowing over the face of Christ.

Every corner was a crucifix.

Funny, the only man in the whole place

who didn’t stare down at me

was the one who was always above me.

In a sense, I hated him; Not for his nature, per say,

but for the men who claim to be his followers.

I don’t like them, they don’t like me.

They preach love, but I don’t feel loved.



A voice called over the speakers,

every room could hear the words..

“...come to the office please.”

No one was wondering why, but they kept looking at me.

It was walking by on the sidewalks under the overhead

where another group of kids walked past.

They giggled, then saw me,

then turned to go where they came from.

Gone in an instant.



I walked into the office, it was a desolate place

with no life other than more familiar faces

whose wrinkles have grown into a defining trait.

Their eyes grew life soon enough as the door behind me closed.

More of those eyes I couldn’t stand,

but I couldn’t say anything.

I never can.



I walked into a room with an old woman too familiar,

not in look but as a person.

Her words were the same as the last.

It was law that I was a defiant student,

I was under their thumb and in their mercy.

Who cared if I had any objections,

it’s not like I knew anything else.



More faces appeared in the class,

but not for me.

Eyes were dead, people were empty, youth was aging;

words left the lips of the woman paid to sell herself

to those she considered below her.

Words felt more and more forced.

Her life felt forced, but I kept on listening

as did the rest of the faces.

Faces…



Something was off,

as if I didn’t belong there.

It was a place I have known my whole life,

words I had heard every day for years yet I didn’t belong.



I stood up, then stood still.

No one cared.

I walked forward.

No one cared.

I left.



I left.



Behind the door was a field,

behind me a lake and a cabin.

Retreat? Learn the will of God.

He is the almighty, you are below him.

We enact his will, we are the church,

yet we are below him.

It doesn’t matter if it doesn’t make sense,

they told me in the classroom it wasn’t supposed to make sense.

You just had to believe.

Belief makes sense.



For some reason I stood on the other side of the lake,

looking across a gleaming and shining surface

above a brown, muddy water.

Across were the kids I felt I belonged with,

they weren’t going to accept me though.

They’re in high school now, I’m stuck in the past.

Maybe I could reach them if I tried?



So I swam, it was in vain but I felt I needed to try.

They smiled and smiled more and more.

I kept swimming.

A man appeared before me in a doorway,

music blasted from inside the old-gym.

He said to leave, to turn around.

I cared.

No one cared.

He didn’t care.

I walked forward into the guard

and everything flipped on its head,

nothing but the blank eyes and hateful gazes

from women and men across the church.

I walked down the aisle,

it was almost over.



I woke up, I was called to the office again.

I’m defiant and crude.

This much I know.

I’m a danger to everyone.

This much I know.

I can’t see them again.

No one cared except me;

but I don’t matter to them.