For years, I have kicked you while we slept
     under covers, in a pre-dawn echoing
     with cries from preying owls.

For years, you’ve abided my midnight, REM-reflex shots to your
     side, buttocks, shins, thighs.

I fight with my dreams: assassins and kidnappers and thieves and liars and thugs and hateful, hate-filled hate-oids bearing down upon me, you, everyone.

I kick and punch and bite and grapple but they keep coming.

And, when I wake, it is you in pain.

Still, you abide.

You do not strike back.

You know what dreams have come.

Now, you’re surrounded by a cocoon of pillows:
     large, small, square and cylindrical.

You feel protected.
You feel isolated.
You abide.

And I kick you while we sleep.