Dream
So this a poem, or a part of it, at least, that I wrote today.
Have you spent a day alone with a bully?
When there's no one to see,
Something lifts from his shoulders
It is wondrous to behold,
Like an eyelid fluttering open and like lighting flashing
Across darkness, and be warned
It is often as temporary.
Permanence is overrated anyway.
I have never slept very well;
They always came for me in the night.
In the night, I remember
Long after they snored
I laid awake, terrified of closing my eyes
Lest the monster break through.
There was always this tussle
Between will and fatigue, sharpened by my fear
The stakes stacked against me, my body always won and
When my mind rested its vigil
He came. him and his, and me and mine
Everyone haunted me in my terrors
They killed and died and blamed me
I was strangled and tied and made to suffer
Incessantly I thrashed and mewled
And occasionally, someone would wake me
And lay back in their bed, unknowing
Of the blessing that is sound sleep.
I didn't fix you; there was nothing broken inside
That I could reset and make you alright
When you chose to lift me from my woe
I had no say in where you were carrying us
It was all you. When you woke me from my hell
And didn't lay back on your bed
I spent the night alone with a bully
When we walked the quiet castle together,
When your sleep-heavy steps rid you of your barriers
They freed me from my filial fate, too.
If I swim the skies and fish for you
The dragon of the constellation
I still wouldn't thank you enough;
For the dream in which I exist
Is your charity.
