what dreams are
19.
if i dream when i sleep
i never remember,
i never know why
i wake up afraid
for months
i lay in between
awake and dreaming
aware that i’m was not
able to do either:
still i wondered if this is a dream
how can i be certain?
once i dreamed that
a convenience store opened,
in the wall of my bedroom:
they sold red bull and jerky
terrible light-heated pizza,
customers had to pass through my apartment
to do their shopping
business was brisk,
a stream of consumers flowed across my bed
never talking to me
then the dream lasted days and weeks
dreams don’t last that long do they?
dreams aren’t designed to be eternal;
but reality just buzzes around
like annoying flies you can’t catch
so we hope dreams never end
even when i can’t dream
i know that’s true
homecoming
21.
As i was disappearing
i discovered a keystone;
i found passwords and user names, websites
tools i’ve been building for years
without telling myself,
to create my own world
with its own colours,
it’s own laws of physics,
it’s own grammar and philosophies,
its own qualities i appreciate
like pink and black skies
like heat-vent wind
like planes falling from the sky
crashing into the field
i lay down in
calm in the strange homecoming
you can’t see or hear this world
and you only have my word
to believe or not
later you told me
you wanted me to come back
you helped me find the pieces
and put them together
i asked why
why did you do that
it was so reassuring to be there
why would i want to leave?
my fyction
20.
the day i answered a phone call
i forgot my life
i forgot how to live my life
i forgot the road back,
i wasn’t interested in the road
it didn’t exist
i created a map
without longitude or latitude
without cities and deserts
i created a legend
guided by a new history
unwritten laws of direction
i found a new place
in a personal present:
a place i called mine
as real as any other
waiting for the future:
that believes in its own fiction
that knows how to separate realities
torn between competing perspectives
of reality and creation
the future though is like everyone else,
not certain what to do next
or how to change anything
to not remember
22.
Not remembering is worse than remembering
there was a phone call, an echoed voice
and after —
nothing remembered for months
a phone call that told me of
profound change;
hard change that is the icy rain whipping
across my hair:
it’s not coming
it’s here and it’s too late
a phone call:
after that
all i have are holes,
the spaces between misshapen memories
that aren’t mine,
but tales that a nurse told me
after the phone call
months disappeared
i didn’t notice
i was occupied
wondering if this is where i should be
if there is a territory i belong to
inadequate beliefs
23.
Maybe you believe in modern medicine,
maybe you believe nature
maybe you believe in nothing,
maybe you don’t what to believe
maybe your philosophical argument
has never met a real life consequence
maybe i know however
it’s all inadequate — separate or together;
maybe i know
you can depend on faith or science
or aliens or people,
but you can’t believe in anything