fall awake from a nightmare
already don't remember

i saw a vision, a premonition
i shouldn't believe everything i see

---

my eyes are shining and my head is empty
i had a dream and i wish it wasn't real
familiar scenes on a green screen projected
on the inside of my skull. my eyes are closed.
i'm dreaming and my eyes are closed but i'm awake
i'm so awake. i'm so very awake.
this is the place i visit when i am nowhere,
when i am nothing, when i am collapsing
down to a point. when i have nowhere else to go
i go there. when i have nothing
i have that. i have the space of dreams
and visions and nightmares and when i have
no other home that is my home,
in the hole where the optic nerve leads to the brain
where charon drags images from my eyes down
into my throat where they are discarded
and the creature on the surface makes up its own
tv shows and radio plays and fantasies, oblivious to the world

---

i see visions in dreams.
the nightmares are the ones we wake up to
where we have less control than in our lucid dreams —
they leave us exhausted.
our circumstances speak for themselves.
our bodies speak for themselves.

i feel so gross writing poetry to be spoken
over music, because i am proving that
my music does not speak for itself.
i can only speak on top of it, my words falling
like oil leaking from a car onto a wet road.
i want to set these words aflame and watch them
burn, disperse, but i don't have the ability.
i don't trust my voice to speak for me.
i don't trust my words to be spoken.
i don't trust my melodies to carry my words.

my voice is wrong. no matter how much i work on it, i'll never sound how i want to sound.
my vocal chords are wrong.
i try to sing but i succumb to the inevitability that it will never sound right.
i delete the recording.
i close the logic file.
i go to bed.

and in my dreams my larynx lets me sound
how i should. in my dreams i am empowered
to speak for myself. i don't have to jump through any hoops,
it's just there. it's just right by default.
i look how i should. i sound how i should.
it's easy and it's natural and i don't have to work for it.
it's normal and i don't have to put effort into how i sound because it's normal.
i'm normal and i'm happy and i know i'm dreaming
because i'm happy and i'm normal.
it's not fake. it's the truth but only then.
only then and and only forever because
i don't have to wake up. i don't have to wake up.
i don't have to do anything.

i don't have to take melatonin before i go to bed.
i'm always tired enough to sleep.
it's never hard. my body knows what it wants.

i close the logic file. the music keeps playing.
i'm in a high school bathroom.
i try to fit on the toilet. it's a weird shape
and i piss but when i'm done i still have to piss.
"oh," i think to myself, and everyone can hear it,
"i must be dreaming," so with effort
i wake myself up so i don't wet the bed
and fumble my way to the bathroom in the dark.

normal. normal. this is normal.
this is a recurring dream.
this is a recurring dream
and there's something wrong with me
but when i'm asleep i'm normal. when i'm dreaming
i can be normal. i'm normal.

i don't have to wake up.