Aaron Roberson

Nightmares that wake you up

I don’t sleep…

I fall into it—

like a trapdoor giving out beneath my ribs,

like the floor said “fuck you”

and disappeared mid-breath.

And every night—

it’s the same damn script,

just a different knife.

I watch my friends fade out like bad reception,

voices glitching,

faces buffering into nothing—

I’m screaming,

but it comes out like static confession.

“Wait—don’t go—”

but they always do.

They always do.

And I’m left holding ghosts

that still feel warm in my hands,

like memory’s playing a cruel little trick—

like love didn’t get the memo

that it’s already dead.

Then it flips—

like a switchblade in my spine—

Now I’m back in that place,

yeah, that place,

where my veins are just highways

and every road leads to escape.

I swear I can feel it—

the burn,

the flood,

the poison dressed up like a hug.

I’m relapsing in dreams

on drugs I don’t even fucking want,

but my hands move anyway

like they remember better than I do.

Like my body’s a traitor

with a favorite disaster.

And I’m yelling—

“I quit this, I did, I fucking did—”

but the nightmare just laughs,

low and sick,

like it’s got proof I never really left.

And maybe that’s the part

that tears the deepest—

Not the using…

not the losing…

but the feeling

that it’s already chosen.

Like no matter how far I run

there’s a version of me

still kneeling

in the wreckage

begging for numb.

Then I wake up—

Gasping like I just clawed my way

out of a grave I was buried in twice,

sheets twisted like they tried to strangle me quiet,

heart punching my ribs like

“you didn’t survive—

you just got a break.”

And I sit there—

in the dark,

counting what’s real.

Friends?

Still here… I think.

My body?

Still clean… I hope.

But the fear—

the fear sticks like smoke in my lungs,

like even awake

I’m breathing it in slow.

Because nightmares like these

don’t end when you open your eyes—

They linger.

They whisper.

They wait for the next time you close them.

And the cruelest part?

It’s not that they haunt me—

it’s that somewhere deep down…

I’m terrified

they’re trying to warn me.