Seventeen

4 a.m., alone again, in front of this old computer screen...
playing songs that take me back to the days of seventeen.
I was young and wild- the taste of freedom exciting & new...
didn't have a care in the world... and all I wanted was you.
I gave you my heart that winter, gave you my soul that spring...
you gave me a key to keep around my neck, years later you gave me a ring.
We promised each other forever, not knowing forever just wouldn't be-
and now I sit here so many years later, ghosts of the past still haunting me.
Real love has evaded me since you, true emotion I can't seem to find.
I've been told that I'm too guarded, they tell me my wall is too high.
No one even dares to climb it, they damn sure don't try to tear it down-
I guess they know that once they cross it, your ghost is still around.

Nightmares

Waking up sobbing,
face covered in tears.
Sleep only exhausts me,
one night feels like years.
Sometimes the walking dead
appear in my dreams,
I don't want to leave them
but can't bring them back with me.
But usually it's just evil...
gunshots, blades, blood, and gore.
Someone's always chasing me,
there's always locked doors.
I can never see who it is,
yet I can never get away.
My sleeping hours are spent running,
out of breath, screaming... I wake.
I sit here now exhausted,
so sad and don't know why.
I remember the tears upon waking...
it's the only time I can cry.

His Demons

He sees the demons
and tells us about them-
hanging on his shoulders
like Jack the Ripper's cloak.
They torture and mock him
and laugh in his face
because they know we can't see.
We can't stop questioning
whether he's lost his mind
or if he can really see
the dead,
walking among us,
tickling the backs of our necks,
and whispering evil
in our ears.
He sees them and hears them
and even calls them by name.
Jacob, Jedediah, Elizabeth...
how could such biblical names
be the root of such evil?
He says he's not crazy
and that they're really there.
He even shook their hands once.
Civil war soldiers
and Native American chiefs.
He says I'll inherit the curse
and he wants me to be prepared.
But how do you prep yourself
to go insane?