When I Sleep

I know more of the dead than the living.

They talk to me at night as I sleep.

They bid me to join in their knowing,

The agony of life so brief.

~

They speak of an end to all sorrow,

A silent and peaceful abode,

The unflinching grip of tomorrow,

The certainty of warm flesh grown cold.

~

My nights are nothing but torment,

My days are more of the same.

These spectres mock my lament,

And softly mutter my name.

~

So, how to silence the voices

That whisper and writhe in my head,

That show me forbidden vistas

And fill all my hours with dread?

~

One day I'll wake to the silence,

And know that I'm all alone.

The world will be mine for the knowing

When the streets are paved in bone.