Night Terrors Poem by Rhys Owens

i never had night terrors,
but i know a guy that did.
he used to go outside at night
and scream that the elephants
were coming.

now the elephants were bigger than me.
this i knew, and it was that that i felt
when i was awoken, and realized what he was saying.

he knew what he was saying.
one night it was the Nazis.
he was twelve years old,
and the year was 1989.
but it was the original men
from the short filmstrips
we watched in library the year before.

those were the nights when the tv
went off the air.
after a few late shows and movies,
the national anthem was played
and life became surreal enough to dream.

i remember the drip of the kitchen sink
as if it were yesterday.
i would try to wait till the dripping
became in time with the clock on the wall.
my unconscious would hypnotize me
that way, i could dream of things that were
too vague....and when i awoke to hear him

out on my lawn in his stone age pajamas,
shouting that the elephants were still coming...
i would always remember that though i couldn't see them,
they were bigger than me.