Hope

Night-black blocks out these four stone walls
allowing my imagination to color them
with visions of home.
Night, crawling now with rat terrors,
screaming silences broken by silent screams
from the other side of my wall.
They come in the night-
Nighmarus interuptus-
to sow seeds which blossom
only in my sleep,
as the agony of real or imagined pain
grows and bears fruit in the dark.

Sanity, fleeting at best,
a dandelion growing, choking
the wide expanse of sandy green,
meticulously cared for lawns of their dementia.
I focus on that yellow head going to seed...
winds of freedom blowing the bits of cotton fluff
through the chinks to where they can take root
and spread.

Nights here are long. The darkness lingers
beyond daybreak, beyond the mournings.
They come in the dark
-gutteral tones laced with poisoned thinking-
determined to grind my essence into the dirt and sand:
thus far this weed has survived.

It is midday, when stones weep.
Foul moisture oozes across the stones
and I lap it up.
The only liquid I shall have this day.
I lap and I wait, for that one brief moment.

There! The infinity that has existed
since this moment yesterday
erased.
A lone beam of sun shines
bright between chinks in the stone.
Illuminating my cell.
Illuminating the bruises, my odd twisted leg.
Illuminating the dust motes that hang heavy in the air.
Illuminating me.
Illuminating that I am.
Illuminating that the world spins on
and another mid-day has dawned.
I have survived yet another night.

Again in the light,
from that one small beam.
I think
I may be rescued from this Hell.

I have named it Hope.