Lost in My Adolescent Dreams (Poem)

(wrote this in 1999 for a poetry writing class as an undergraduate)

Lost In My Adolescent Dream

Nine-year-old seraph,
buried deep below the covers,
hidden from the woolen beast,
huddled, fetal and fearful,
a shape often on my mind,
praying to not be found.
Roaming the lands of perdition,
lost in my Adolescent dreams.

Wandering the tomato fields in Calabria,
playing amongst the bristled-stalks,
the reddened fruit, sacred, tender to the pluck,
red-fingered and plucked too soon,
running spiral labyrinthine,
in a game of hide and please don’t seek
For I dreamt I was sought.

There came a sudden rattling of chains,
like those of a bound soul,
the chain of a wallet smacking against denim,
the ching-ching-ching of rattling chains-
the burden I still bare, weighed across me for an eternity,
the arrival of the demon,
or what in the dream I gathered to be a presence of ineffable dread,
when all at once it was upon me- black curls and all,
proud in its dark descending fear,
bursting forth from the dream,
trapped in liminal terror,
the words gasping through my lungs: Oh God, It’s Possessing Me!

I felt the most bed-shaking trembling fear,
the bed was creaking, creaking, cracking, and I was whimpering,
its hand across my mouth,
words dying in his motor-oil incensed hands,
the cracks and cuts like jagged wire on my delicate cheeks,
my head violated in its place,
young limbs unable to kick, tender feet unable to run away
no invasion escaping my lips,
hands flailing then bound, crushing of beast mounting boy,
triumphant upon the frail
newly fallen.

The creature departed from its engagement,
across the hall, to hide under its own covers, to feign its own sleep and shame,
I coughed a most horrible lot of fluids,
breathing the first salvation of night,
as keys found the front door, and Mother,
staggering across the living room minutes past my perdition,
worn heels handling carpeted stairs,
the drunken spiral walk of hidden adultery,
before checking upon her little pisan, precious angel, almost Raphael;
abandoned burden of her womb.
defiled little cherub….lost in my adolescent dreams.