I often suffer nightmares
Recurring and tangible
Live and in color,
Except
Something is always off

The slightness is what haunts me
So subtle
This seems like deja vu

It is fall, and I can't feel it on my skin
Or it's night, but there aren't stars
I'm up high, yet not afraid
All the usual beasts are way too big
Or I am very small

Smaller still, the tightrope I walk upon waking
I pluck it while I fall asleep
I can feel the moment I drift away
My body loses tension

The slack lifeline scares me awake

All my friends here don't have faces
Blank spaces where expressions used to be
Yet I recognize them all
And if their questions are real,
And their answers make sense,
How can I tell who's who?

These things I wonder
Wrapped within the folds of my brain
Seared into my waking world
Weighing down my every effort

Are these things the right colors?
Is this voice still my own?
Who's touch am I feeling?
How much time has passed?

wake up

Someone's whispering to me,
But I don't recognize the sound

WAKE UP

After a long day
my bed calls to me,
Comfy and warm
yet her pillows stay cool to the cheek.

She keeps me company
all through the night,
My thoughts become hers,
in darkness or light.

Will I have good dreams
of love and adventure?
Or will shadows appear,
too deep to mention?

My mind plays tricks,
as she often does,
But my bed fights back
with her comforting hugs.

My neck finds peace
if I lay just right,
She eases my aches
most of the night.

She puts up with my snoring,
my tossing and thrashing,
Each dreamscape journey
more wild and crashing.

And though I kick and I turn
as I move through my dreams,
She never lets me fall out,
always there fixing my seams.

sometimes i wake
from a fever-dream
spent with a mystery being –
evaporating too quickly
to savour
leftover feelings,
and hidden benefits
of a midnight affair
with someone
that doesn't exist.

when the day
is half gone,
i'm still lovesick,
incapable of
stopping my mind
from hoping
there’s a button somewhere
to hit re-wind.

I wonder what it’s like
To have a peaceful night’s sleep
To not be scared of the silence
To not be terrified of the clock ticking
My eyes burn with no respite
As I write poems at night
Maybe if I empty my mind
I will finally be able to unwind
My demons laugh at me
They will not let me be
I’m losing my will to continue living
As I lie on my bed writhing.

her absence is a hum
beneath the streetlight.
it slips through my curtains -
silver,
never soft enough
to hush my thoughts.
give me a break.

her name is a wind,
caught behind my ribs,
blowing through
the rooms i built for her
but never locked.

every breath feels borrowed,
taken -
like she left it behind
by accident.
like her smile,
still living in the quiet
between my heartbeats.

the bed forgets
how to hold me right,
how to put me to sleep.
some nights,
loneliness is a second pillow.
other nights,
it’s her voice -
curled up
where my dreams should be.
but they aren’t.