Nocturnal Beings

Haley Florence 

each night we are awakened by the nocturnal beings in the attic

they keep us up racing around our minds like static

and we can’t go to sleep but we don’t want to wake up

wishing it were a dream but instead we stay up

listening to the thoughts that invade our brains

funny how our mind used to be a safe place

an escape from the pain, the one place we could claim

that we knew who we were, we knew what to do

but that was before the peace turned into a zoo

where animals run wild and there is no control

over the crazy and the hectic world that we know

so these thoughts become protests against our own skin

as wrists are slit to bring the pain to an end

guns are loaded and triggers are pulled

all in an attempt to silence the cruel

but these attempts never work

instead they pass on the hurt

to the next one in line

who now gets it worse

now, this new soul has to deal with the passing

of an old friend who just couldn’t grasp the

benefits to staying and living her life

She simply lost hope and didn’t want to strive

She got tired of finding a brand new reason

and then watching that reason change with the season

so she decided to take the easy way out

and put an end to her life leaving all others to doubt

whether there was something that they should have done

if her lost battle could have been won

but instead she gave up and gave in to the demon

who took her lost soul and found it appealing

and we must find a way to hope and to trust

that this same demon doesn’t decide

to take another one of us.

it is now up to the living to tame the animals again

to put them in a cage and bring this cycle to an end

because we cannot afford to lose yet another soul

to the battle we all fight, the battle we all know

depression is a sickness that doesn’t have cure

but happiness is mindset that can always be yours

all you have to do is put those beings back to sleep

and demand to find closure in the peace that you will keep.