leave me be.

I used to have nightmares.

they started when I was a kid
I'd wake up screaming and had terrible headaches
it was hard for me to sleep since I was a boy

they followed through my teen years
and I strangely started to appreciate them
fond of their ways, their forms

putting them on a piece of paper made it worse
made them more real, more scary
so the screaming is easily heard even nowadays, a decade later

so I began to fear them
they started to control me
until I collapsed

later on, I got used to them
they were like siblings
you don't have to like them, but you learn to live with

little did I know

they are still here
every other night, or sometimes for a full month
they visit me and force me to remember who I am

but hey, I said "used to"

yeah, I know
that sounds weird
what I didn't know was

that after thousands of nightmares
hoping they'd go away
my life would become one

and this time I'm not sleeping,

and this time...

I can't wake up.