Often, on long nights my dreams will curl up around me
so from wooden bed beams grow leaves, that surround me,
first as twigs, then palms that stretch and breathe
into the room’s shadows until insomnia wakes from its dreams.
Forests rise out of blankets, and jungles emerge from walls.
An ocean swells near my closet, crashing smells of fish into my drawers.
Mountains, topped in glass clouds, cover windowpanes
beside deserts sanded with scents of ancient carpet stains.
In my mind, it’s a country with hills, silver-plated during full moons
where remnants of kingdoms meet plains of memories cocooned
in places where my mind creates brave nations, with brave battles,
with brave warriors, with secretly scared hearts and hopes bottled
up inside. Flocks of moths can be heard with tongues
twittering in high places of remote ceilings
They squawk by the starlight of my phone screen
and like elephant, fictional beasts roam the Serengeti
of my rug while hordes of dust-bunnies stir
underneath their feet, shaking off grit from fur.
And am I just crazy or are those monsters poised along this countryside?
With rot breath and roars echoing out to where my nightmares hide.
Tiles turn into crop fields, magic condenses along
mirrors, and through them I swear I see a throng,
crowds, generations of knights, rulers, farmers, astronomers,
poets, or a dozen other hopes gazing back at me, blind as Homer.
Cascading down rapids where water mills sprout like algae near the rickety bridge,
doesn’t it sound a bit too much like the humming of my dorm’s fridge?
What makes clicking of shovels against mud in fields,
or stone laid against fresh castle cement, or sword against shields
sound a bit too much like ticking of a bedside clock?
High winds where dragons play and clouds flock,
feel a bit too much like a wisp of a soft fan, blowing
cool air of foreign worlds into valleys of my desk flowing
into where snow is paper? There, dark shadows, footprints in slush, stand
out like ink. Ancient tales spread from shelved highlands
fogged with aromas of vanilla mist
countertops, remains of Febreezed cliffs.
And now I’m down into a place far from that first sprig of leaves.
Here, anything can happen, reality blends with my dreams.
The sun rises in the west, and the world falls upwards
grass smells like seafoam, and seas taste like Italian herbs.
Here, we sail across plains and take trains across oceans
fly through dirt and tunnel under clouds to cause commotion,
we go faster than light, from z to a,
the sky sings, trees laugh and play.
And pretty soon
I’m laughing too.
But if I were to tell the truth, it’s very dark,
so when it all ends there is something stark
like, pain, and fear left lingering thick
as you notice how it’s all gone so fast, waking quick
to the death of a whole world.
But still, I can’t be too sad when I know I don’t need anything grand and new;
no reason to wait for moonlight to make fictional realities come true.
And perhaps you can imagine, to some small degree, what I mean
when I say this everyday life is a chance to really capture that dream.
But you better be ready for an adventure that leaves you counting sheep
because my kind of dreams don’t go to sleep.
