Hide and Seek
“A brother was a terrible thing. He was a lifelong competitor, yet you couldn’t hate him without hating yourself.” - Ian Rankin, Hide and Seek
Whew. That was just a dream,
just another regret-fueled dream,
my parents and brothers long dead.
I hadn’t run away from them, after all,
hadn’t gotten lost trying to return,
running down deadends,
lost in places
unfamiliar as dreams themselves,
groping, time running out
the way it does in dreams,
almost tangible,
fragile and fleeting as sleep itself.
Charles Rammelkamp is Prose Editor for BrickHouse Books in Baltimore, where he lives with his wife Abby. He contributes a monthly book review to North of Oxford and is a frequent reviewer for The Lake, London Grip and The Compulsive Reader. A poetry chapbook, Mortal Coil, was published in 2021 by Clare Songbirds Publishing and another, Sparring Partners, by Moonstone Press. A full-length collection, The Field of Happiness, will be published in 2022 by Kelsay Books.
“A brother was a terrible thing. He was a lifelong competitor, yet you couldn’t hate him without hating yourself.” - Ian Rankin, Hide and Seek
Whew. That was just a dream,
just another regret-fueled dream,
my parents and brothers long dead.
I hadn’t run away from them, after all,
hadn’t gotten lost trying to return,
running down deadends,
lost in places
unfamiliar as dreams themselves,
groping, time running out
the way it does in dreams,
almost tangible,
fragile and fleeting as sleep itself.
Charles Rammelkamp is Prose Editor for BrickHouse Books in Baltimore, where he lives with his wife Abby. He contributes a monthly book review to North of Oxford and is a frequent reviewer for The Lake, London Grip and The Compulsive Reader. A poetry chapbook, Mortal Coil, was published in 2021 by Clare Songbirds Publishing and another, Sparring Partners, by Moonstone Press. A full-length collection, The Field of Happiness, will be published in 2022 by Kelsay Books.
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