“It was written that I should be loyal to the nightmare of my choice.”  

So I chose to sleep without thought, wrapped in the close embrace of ignorance.
It was nice to think that the hands on my slight shoulders,
the gentle firmness in the touch, belonged to someone else; a friendly face
or guardian, shielding me from the outside world.

But something about the bend in the elbows seemed strange, or maybe
it was the varying pressure in the finger tips on my back, that woke me up.
And I looked out my window, arms still draped around myself,
to see a world on fire. A voice from the dark reaches of my heart calls me back to sleep. 

I clutch my own shoulders, all hard edges and sharp angles, to witness
children being cut down in the parks where they play,
women being fired upon in their own homes,
men being suffocated in the streets.  

There is no time to mourn them, and there is no way to return
to the false peace of my dream. Have the flames always been so close?
How did I not hear the screams, or smell the smoke?
The white walls of my room begin to fall apart as I rush out my window to see…   

“The world has no end and what is good among one people is an abomination among others.”