Every dream you have in life
is a wish-fulfillment.
 
Twisting down the path of memory,
seasons pass by in seconds:
winter, spring, summer, fall
                off
                    the
                        page
and you wake up in a home that is so much like
yours, but, but, but the doors go nowhere
or to the room you just left.
 
And your heart starts yammering as the uncanny
as it slips into your life like a last shot of
liquor or a guitar slide to the bottom of
the neck
 
But comfort!
A lover waking up next to you in bed
and shaking you out of this nightmare
and she hushes your disjointed narrative
with a finger to the lips and kisses
you on the mouth
And she says “don’t worry, Chris. It was all a dream”
But your name isn’t Chris, and even if it is,
maybe she didn’t say it right.
And you wake up again
and again
and I have one question for you:
When was the first time you ever woke up?
 
Its okay not to remember, because maybe it never happened
Or maybe you’re still sleeping.
 
Sleep is not the cousin of death.
It is your mother.
 
And waking is the umbilical cord being snipped from your gut
and falling from the International Space Station
Into the perfect blankness of night.
And seeing your cord detached from everything you hold dear.
 
Some might call this freedom
Or somber reality
But really it’s only a dream

© 2013 Chris Moriarty

The Big Windows Review 5 (Fall 2013)