dream – So It Goes

I had a dream —
or maybe it was a memory —
that you commented
on one of my poems.

I can’t seem to find it now
or recall which poem it was,
but it made me think
of my horoscope from yesterday,
the one that read,

“your type of paranoia means
that you think someone hates you
if they don’t respond right away.”

Now, I don’t expect you to respond,
but clear thoughts like that
don’t exist in anxiety-riddled bodies.

I’ve learned a few things that
I’ve wanted to share with you —
for no reasons other than
I learned them or
felt insanely ashamed of
not knowing them before —

like realizing Jack White wrote
Steady, as she goes
with Brendan Benson.

Anyways,
I think it was a dream,
a dream where the world spun
and I thought of The Weepies.

I accomplished something great today.
I shared it, of course, hoping you’d care.

I think you did.

But now I’m here,
thinking about the rattling words
in my brain and drinking
a warm beverage
from a shipwrecked mug.

Dream you shared a dream with dream me —
there was no white picket fence,
but there was a house,
a small house with two porches.

Inside, there were only 3 rooms,
including the bedroom and bathroom.

You said I insisted on us having a round
dining table, like the knights.
Yet, it was almost always ovular, 1 or 2
extra leaves stuck into the middle
to fit your family.

Your grandmother taught me southern cooking,
and I taught her what not to do when baking.
She and I would garden together,
and you said I would make bouquets of vegetables
to bring to the neighbors.

Sometimes, you said,
I would climb out the bedroom window
to greet the sun, running
across the open field, barefoot.

I would stand, head raised to the sky —
a silhouette in the bright morning.

In those moments,
you would watch, gingerly
getting up from our shared bed
to stand at the window.

Always, you said, ready to run after me
if my knees gave way and I collapsed
in the shining grass.

You worried about that,
never knowing if my desire to be consumed
by light would actually kill me.

Sometimes though, you would run to me anyways,
and I would be so engrossed I wouldn’t hear you.
You ventured it was because I was listening
to another world, one quieter than ours.

You would come up, nevertheless, and
put your hand around my waist,
drawing me back to our world.

Your parents never understood this ritual,
seeing us from their kitchen window
as the coffee brewed,
but they did see love.

Tag: dream

guitar static

Dreams.