Take a few more steps
In a future uncertain
A few more licks
In a future unseen
Last dance to the music unheard
Wake me for the final scene
waking
Beyond the edges, in filigree
I’ve waited in the dark
Lurking
Eyes strained
Sleep deprived and wired
Sipping coffee
Waiting for
Something to bring out light
Waited so long
That light itself was foreign
Suspect
That people could live in that place and not know its inevitable destruction
That the bright light was just the soft underbelly of the darkness
Darkness to make you strong
To feast on pain
To become inured to it
To seek it out
To wake
And in a moment of clarity
A moment of breathe which came so rarely
Its presence was pleasure itself
Realize that waiting is giving up
And drag yourself up out of the darkness to live as an alien in the bright world
Because you’ve been changed
Because you can’t see the simple without looking for its opposite
Because you are infused in darkness and whatever you think and do is just a step away from
That place
That cavern
That prison
You once called shelter
Stiff knee soliloquy
You’ll never be here watching me sleep
Days passing by
Cuddled under my raven blanket
Sad songs singing through my bedroom
You’ll never see my hand kneed the soft cat sleeping next to me
The rise and fall
Breathing in and out
Never see my arm hugged around a pillow
Thrown wide at an odd angle
Remembering what it was to sleep near another
Never know that my dreams are of you
And when I wake
To music and white stucco ceilings
Tears and absence will be my companion
And a cat and penguin
And words
Said into silence
Thin lines of blood crisscross the heart
Sometimes I wake up with all the pain of loss in my heart
My mind rushing to consciousness through a gauntlet of each person I’ve loved who have died or left or are so distant that any hope of us remains in the realm of dreams that never were
I wake in this tearing agony as if my dreams were filled with my loves and waking is the cutting blade ripping me open
I wake like this and go to work
Where people don’t know the wonderful people who I’ve carved myself up, open to
Where explaining even a tenth of what I feel would earn at best pity and most likely contempt
And as weary as I grow of this pain, those who care must read my torment and have nothing else to say. All the words have been said. All the sympathy given. And we are all left hollow and we are all stuck on the fringes of understanding. Each of us a world alone.
I stay away, awake as long as I can. The torment of staying away from sleep and the comforts of not thinking. Stay awake to keep from that moment of wake
Still, in dreams we are together. Different me’s, different you’s; watching their lives unfold
Happy that somewhere we are found
Until that moment when again, all is lost
Knives of jade spill blood as beauty
Exhale
Curved sinuous
Turned crystalline
Cuts tongue
Choked words spill onto bloody snow
Hand caresses soft skin
Warmth blooms
Frozen over
Cracked slough
Weights too heavy to bare
Fall away
Pepper frozen blood
Shrapnel burst
Flayed of protective cover
Hopeful anew
Slowly dying
In the brittle
Bone chill
Of morning
Long before the dawn
Enough blood and pain to drown a nation
Lost myself in a fantasy
Where all was equality
Wake to a world without
Cast a whole worldview into doubt
Clay falling away from feet
Scales from eyes
It’s time to rise
And take control of the dream
One day soon
For the future
Not some mythic illusion
Of pasts false reflection
Greatness based on perception
Hard to see who you’re stepping on
When your head is looking for a horizon
This reasonable revolution
Accountability of public perception
Crying for the promises of privilege
Exposing the corruption
Seeing the body America
Turn over and smell the rot
Maggots feasting on long dead flesh
Cut away our delusions
Remember ideals and not the realities of them
Bigots, Monsters, and Liars
For one moment gave in to idealism
Slice up the foundation
Look to the building
A future for looking
An all seeing eye that was once willfully blind
Raise up arms and voices
No more standing by
Standing silent
(A call to arms of the seemingly unaffected
False safety because you’re protected
Take up arms or be ejected
Useless casings without the powder to burn
If you aren’t angry
You’re still sleeping
Time to wake up before you find
Your Bolivian smile
We hear privilege and say we haven’t been handed anything
Anything but safety
Anything but the benefit of the doubt
Anything but the automatic acceptance of competence
It’s easy to be
When you live in a echo chamber
Reflections of the predator
Decrying the unfairness of being treated like prey)
Yawn… Stretch
I dislike how we got here
Whatever here turns out to be
All I know is that
I’m breathing for the first time in years
Woken for the the first time
Smiling
Working with you
I don’t know what will happen
But now
Now is enough for now
Dream
I dreamed of many things but primarily of a woman who would get caught in a world of words. Get lost in them. In the dream, I met her on a trip. It was the mountain dreamscape. A natural and wild area. I was camping and she was out in the wilderness and we shared a fire. It was cold, so we shared a chair next to the fire. Her snuggled in my lap. Her head against my heart.
The dream shifted to a woman telling a story about how she sometimes fell into a world where words would send her spinning. Where the words themselves become a world and she feels like she is fighting to get clear. To get home. And it’s like I’m riding along in her mind. I can see all of this, the fight and the journeys that take lifetimes and moments. That seems like pauses where she gets lost and is inattentive but really she is struggling with everything she has to get back.
Then I’m watching her give a talk about a book she’s written about the experience of her affliction and I find she has dedicated the book to me.
And the dream shifts and we’re in bed, my real bed complete with too many pillows and crimson sheets. And I turn to her and say, “Really? I really mean that much, help you that much that you want the world to know?”
She says, “of course, you keep me in the world. When you are here, I rarely slip away and rarely for long. And I remember that night on the ridge when you didn’t know me but you shared your fire and warmth.”
I say, “I love you, you are mine.” she smiles like I’ve given her the best news and we hold each other. Then I get up to get ready to go to work. But I’m waking from the dream and I don’t want to. I return to bed and hold her. She says, “I thought you were going to work.” I say, “I don’t want to leave here.” and I break and say “please, don’t leave me. Please, stay. Please.”
Then I wake completely. And she is gone. And I am crying.
Candy and Absinthe
Spread my wings out
To fly
But they
Are made of bones
Just fighting
To stay alive
Just tired
Of being
Alone
Stretch my hand
Out to the sky
I know you’re
Worth the fight
Kiss me
I’m falling
Catch me
I’m losing my mind
One touch and
I’m home
So tired
Of being alone
But you’re here
You’re real
These things that
I feel
These doubts that
Beat
In my chest
False prophets
Caged in regret
But you’re here now
You’re real
Wake me, from this dream
Kiss me
I am clean
Waking up
Waking up
I find myself thinking of you
the thought of you stretching as you wake
the simple pleasure of seeing your consciousness flood into you
beautiful
welcoming you to the day
welcome my love
welcome my heart
welcome
welcome