My poetic expression, in image and verse, of the traumatic “night terrors”, I’ve experienced all my life, along with over four million other adults. It manifests itself for me as imageless nightmares, that fill me with such deep dread that I’m often awakened moaning loudly, sometimes screaming! It is a type of nocturnal torment from which I awaken disoriented, and unwilling to return to sleep. I am 75, and the idea of falling asleep is still extremely unsettling. Often awake ‘til thoroughly exhausted, I require prescription sleep meds nightly. Cause unknown, symptoms in adults can include a sudden awakening from sleep fully or partially, thrashing, screaming, intense fear and terror of an unknown reason, rapid heartbeat, rapid breathing, increased blood pressure, dilated pupils and wide eyes, sweating, increased muscle rigidity, inability to return to sleep.
“Descent Into Night Madness” by: Rob Kistner © 1992
Evil’s blackest nocturnal nest
perversely born fantazury
midnight’s mad-menagerie
zoom-zooming
this blue-black world
disgusting hideousities
death scratch-scratching
doomsday’s door
swarming crazed horrorifity
scare
ensnare
then traumatize me
flaying bone-toed my synapses
hell’s hounds devour my peace
mind-ghouls shake’n’shiver me
oh gentle morne — deliver me
*
rob kistner © 2022
Poetry at: dVerse