Broken Dreams

By: Brandon K. Ponder


I remember it all as if it were yesterday.  Suppose to be asleep but never really being able to get to my dreams.  I thought it was all a game, I'd stay awake peering around the corner trying to watch the end of whatever movie I wasn't suppose to be watching.  I'd sit on the floor as quiet as I could, but never quiet enough.  Scampering back into bed when my parents heard me, my eyes squeezed tightly shut when they came to check on me.  They knew I couldn't possibly be asleep especially with the rye smile on my face as I faked it.  But they never said anything as they let me go on thinking myself to be a clever boy.

I remember it all as if it were yesterday.  Suppose to be asleep but never really being able to get to my dreams.  I thought it was all a game, but then again the games that I remembered didn't involve this much screaming. I didn't know the words that were being spoken only that I had never heard my parents speak them before.  I sat right outside their door listening intently, never really understanding the magnitude of it all.  And when I couldn't quite hear them anymore I pressed my ear up against the door bumping it just enough to let them know someone was outside.  I scampered back to bed because I know my parents heard me, my eyes squeezed tightly shut when they came to check on me.  they knew I couldn't possibly be asleep, but there was no rye smile on my face this time as I faked it.  Because I knew that it wasn't a game anymore.

I remember it all as if it were yesterday.  Suppose to be asleep but never really being able to get to my dreams.  I thought it was all a game, but there is no more peering around corners to watch movies and no more listening outside my parents room.  For the house has gone silent and I lay in bed at night tossing and turning knowing but really not knowing what is to come.