Oh how many times before this day
have I dreamed of children content in play.
Their happy laughter within my dreams
is suddenly silent, then turns to screams.
I awake at this point with memory plain
of a time long ago at the start of this pain.

A feeling of dread in my dreams I do feel,
the image I see is so close to real.
Awakened with thoughts of a day long ago,
a day that my memory can never outgrow.
How long it has taken to find the means
to conquer dark terror of my dreams.

As I wait in the car with gathering feeling
my friend chants a prayer for help with my healing.
I tell her once more that I cannot now go
to a place where my heart will be filled with woe.
She urges me on, with no means of escape,
to revisit my school and stand at its gate.

As I gaze at the schoolyard now empty and clean
I am absorbed yet once more into my dream.
The children I see are those that I knew,
we sang with our hearts as in spirit we grew.
Two children are missing I now plainly see,
one my suicide friend, the other is me.

I force my eyes open in terrible fear,
yet the vision remains drifting and clear.
How long I stood in this piteous plight
I will never recall if I try with my might.
At last my vision does fade to the sky
with words in my head saying help is close by.

At last there is nothing to fear here for me,
I can live out my life in quiet harmony.
As I walk with stumbling gait to the car
once more tears well up into eyes fixed afar.
My friend quickly sees how it is with my now,
a long soothing prayer she does me allow.

The ghosts of my past are here to dwell,
yet this visit I know my fears will quell.
To help myself was part of the plan,
to understand myself, if ever I can.
Today I revisited the school beyond the dream
but hid from my eyes the things obscene!