A stranger found me today
Holding out their dream
In their hand
Another world
For me to throw myself into
Crystalline and mysterious and new
And I did inch by inch
Fraction by fraction
And the stranger turned
From stranger to friend
As I lost myself
To the creeping tendrils of the dream
Casting off reality
Like a reluctant shadow
Becoming someone entirely new
Trapped in another's body
And I went on believing
For a year
Or so
Until one day
Yesterday, actually
I met a friend
Who had been offered the dream
By my stranger
And we traded dreams
Telling what was now a story
And my friend laughed at the dream
For she was smart
And had seen through it
And recognized a crazy loon's ranting
And I laughed with her
Realizing
With a heap of embarrassment
What a fool I was
To have believed in that stranger
( who was just a loon)
And their dream
Shriveled up right in front of me
As I stepped away from it
And saw that it was only the imaginings
Of a poor,sick girl
(who you know as stranger)
Lost in delirium
How easy it was then
To cast off her dream
When my old friend laughed quietly
About it
By my side
And I laughed with her
But now I sit
And wonder
So caught up in this dream
Had I been
That now I began to wonder
What reality I had missed
And with a bang
And a slash
And a roar
And a great wrenching tear
I found myself having to give up
My self that was dreamed up
And the pain was terrible
For this dream-self
Had become a part of me
And now I was letting it go
But confused was I
For the pain I had felt
For how far in love i had fallen with a fake man
I had dreamed up
The grief over the imaginary dead
The sadness
But also the victories
And the happiness
And the triumphs
All seemed so real
So real
And I was having a hard time
Believing they were not
But the hardest bit of dream-self to give up
Was the bit that was a performer
That wrote music
And played any instrument
And sang and danced with beautiful fervor
And was beautiful and graceful
And loved by her fans
And she had come to life
As I sat late into the night
In the darkness of my room
With my headphones
Imagining this whirling figure sing and dance
With beautiful fervor
Cheered on by adoring people
For all loved her
For her performances
For what she did
For her vulnerability
As she left caution behind
And flung herself out onto stage
But I think that she is the one token I will go on believing in
For now I realize
Why I believed in the stranger's dream at all
It was the power
The delight in a secret no one else knew
The confidence it gave me
To be this other person
That nestled into my heart
And now I am ripping the dream away
But I think I'll try
To keep the confidence
And the whirling performer
As she leaps across the stage