Eyes Open

There is no dream like a Child's dream, even those nightmares
The ones that held on tight during those moments of coming to
Even they, heightened my senses more than any drug or fuck”

Awake, but as though bobbing in rough
Sea, I sink in and out of splintered image.
It's Father without his dank tobacco smell.
He sits in a twisted wicker chair, wearing
Himself like a crumpled jumper,
On a balding head, blood-blue veins
River his head.
Again and again I go
To embrace him, he fades and I fall
Alone upon frozen grass in the field he
And I first kicked ball.
Car lights path the darkness
Each shadow Freeze pausing across the bedroom wall.
This dream so honest in image, I tremble beneath
Star Wars printed sheets.
Had I known this was but a possible image to come;
That I could stand toe to toe with the canvas of all that I feared
Maybe, just maybe, the drugs and the fickle fucks
Could’ve given way to those valued moments
That air each night on every ad break, where the family
Sit round a perfectly polished table, eating a wholesome
Part meat, part veg supper, which when finished
The children patter on upstairs to play
In harmony as mother and father chat idling whilst
Washing the dishes with products that soften their hands
And soothe their souls. Dreams, they say, speak mostly
The truth, I never wanted the idyllic merely a moment
Without the desire to flee into the folds of every passing
Woman, or the yellow cloud smoke of a plastic pipe.