Death and Dreams

A shadow child in an empty field
flickers under hot moonlight,
bare feet bleeding on the briar bed
of thoughts lain out in the biting night.

There's a whisper in his mind,
a memory crying, whining, shrieking,
and he only shivers in the silence
when it's too dark for speaking.

Once upon a time, he dreamed
of sailing in an open sky,
flanked by stars and moons and suns
and in another world so high

that he couldn't ever be found again,
that he'd be lost in his endless fantasy.
He'd climb across the galaxies forever,
swim through this distant, infinite sea,

and float away further every day,
cradled in spinning celestial ships.
For now he slips through the shadows of the dark
while his dreams drip from cracking lips--

Scarlet dreams of running, gunning
for a chance at sweet escape tonight,
pouring, bursting, painting his path
with the gateway caught within his sight.

Ahead there lies a liquid mirror,
holding the sky on the ground, where it gleams,
and the shadow child chases the illusion,
stumbling onward for death and dreams.