I don't want a dream. I do not desire that
which is fleeting, though perfect - which will be gone
once sunrise comes. But when will I arrive at
the place where I will find joy in every dawn?
I don't want a dream. I want something that's real.
I want to want to wake up in the morning.
I don't want to get lost in some far-off ideal
world that won't be there to react to my going.
I need to live in reality, not dreams -
though there are plenty of reasons for sleeping,
though the real world isn't always as it seems,
there are things for which I would go on living.

I don't want to dream any longer, please, I
need to wake up now, please don't just let me die.

If the words really mean something to you, you will try to push them away.
If in the lines of the painter's strokes or the lyrics of the musician;
If in the actor's cry of pain or the writer's printed page;
If in the eyes of another or the pastor's sermon on Sunday
You find yourself looking into a mirror - a mirror into your very soul -
You will scramble backwards. You will look away.
You will try and try to push it out of your mind.
You will resist changing for as long as you can.

But eventually something inside you will truly snap.
Eventually you'll find yourself in tears on someone's bathroom floor,
Hating who you have become, who you have let yourself become.
Eventually, you will become someone else.

You will allow yourself to give in to the inevitable change.
You will think of nothing else for a while but how to be better.
You will seek it out. You will walk towards it open-armed.
You find your reflection shifting and changing to something beautiful.
If in the eyes of another you find yourself again, you will smile.
If in the words of an author or the smile of an actor,
If in the drumbeat you find your heartbeat, in the paint you find your color -
If you pull it closer to you, it will begin to echo you out.

i come back to my room
and there is no one
beautiful
waiting for me.
there
never is.
the singular blanket
amplifies the loneliness
of my
singular
body,
and my
singular
heart
beating one
singular
lonely
beat
at a time
goes on
anyway.

Some nights as I fall asleep,
There is music that plays in my head.
It is soft and melodic and sad,
And it is never the same.
Upon waking, sometimes I find
The music is still there, lingering
On the edge of my conscious memory.
But I can't make my hands write the notes
down.
I'd sing it for you but
I cannot sing for an orchestra and
It would not be the same.

I compose unwritten symphonies
In the back of my tiger mind, conduct
Strange and ethereal orchestras, become maestro,
Master of the music, queen of the opera,
Of the stage of the whole world if I want,
I can become anything, anyone -
I am a pirate on the high seas, I am a dragon
Soaring over Albion, I am a snowflake,
A child, an action hero, an astronaut,
I am beautiful and powerful and strange
I am hideous and weak and sad
I am all, and none, and the music reaches it crescendo,
The seas of my subconscious roil and churn,
My story reaches its fever pitch and
In bursts the dawn.
And all that was created is destroyed,
The music lost to hand that can't write it down,
A throat that can't sing it out.

Some nights there is only the sound of my breath
And the sirens in the distance as I fall asleep.
But some nights, I hear music.

smell of sidewalks after rain as we walked back to the car.
i like to pretend i live here, under the great spreading trees
in an old, beautiful house with someone i love.
i want to grow old in a house like that,
with a big, flowering front yard, a creaky old porch,
a vegetable garden, a jar of buttons, a cat, a climbing-tree.
i want to watch the sun through the leaves,
hear the rain on the roof, fix up its leaks,
paint the walls, frame the pictures,
position little ceramic birds artistically on tables,
fill cases and boxes and shelves and rooms with books
and art and laughter and life and love.
i want to fill a house with my warmth
nest in it, curl up against its walls and breathe it in,
bring fresh flowers to the kitchen,
dance alone in the living room.
my house. my kitchen, my walls, my living room.
i want to fill a whole building with my choices,
with who i choose to be, with who i choose to love.
i don't know what my life will be but
it would be nice to grow old
in a house with a climbing-tree.

i want to think
that i am a Creative
that i have a
Free Spirit

but
everywhere
i am
in chains.

i am a slave
to the silence
at 3 a.m.
and the way
it breathes
calm inspiration

i am a slave
to the moments
in which i feel
alive, in which
i feel the wonder
and delight
of life
flowing
through me

i am a slave
to the books
i stay up all night
reading
and the art i
take a step closer to
to breathe in
and i am a slave
to the words
that i write.

loving you
is like falling asleep at night
sometimes it is easy
and sometimes
impossible
and
sometimes
I wait
breathless
for the morning.