Nightmares part 2

We've all watched the action movies
where the hero jumps through windows and into stick shift mini coopers that he can maneuver through the streets
and barely make a safe getaway
we think, even just for a moment,
hey, I could do that.
or wonder what it would be like to be capable. to have that possibility.

but these scenes flood my mind and saturate it to the point where the spill over into my unconscious hours
where I should be peacefully resting my mind I end up running from men with guns whose only goal is to terrify me
and it works.
these nightmares- they don't go away. they only get worse.
just the other night I watched as a best friend was shot right in front of me. twice.
my own limbs betrayed me; wouldn't move as i needed them to
I was screaming down my own nerve synapses for something to click
but my blood had congealed with fear and I couldn't snap out of this dream gone wrong

I have witnessed my own father become a victim of a nonexistent plague
my sister lose her life in a freak accident
and imagine that my grandmother really isn't gone

so when I let reality pry my eyes apart like elevator doors
I lay in the bed that is crawling with invisible monsters just waiting to slip into my sleeping moments
and try to convince myself that the emotions that carried over
have no place in their attempts to make me panic

These nightmares haunt me better than any ghost ever could
because they prey on fears that will someday be realized.
for now, they just make me remember exactly what I have
and to be grateful for it
because it could be gone in a moment's notice

and i know all too well
what that feels like.