I woke, or thought I did,  
to a world stitched from vapour
a tapestry of maybe,  
where time forgets its own footsteps  
and gravity is just a rumour
passed between sleeping stars.

The sky blinked,  
and I was a child again,  
or a bird, or a thought  
half-formed in someone else's mind.  
Mountains melted into oceans,  
oceans whispered secrets to trees,  
and the trees laughed  
in languages no one had taught them.

I walked through cities  
made of breath and memory,  
where buildings leaned in  
to hear the gossip of clouds.  
People passed like shadows  
wearing masks of flesh,  
each one convinced  
they were the only dreamer.

But I saw it,
the seams in the sky,  
the glitch in the sunbeam,  
the way the moon sometimes forgets  
which phase it's in.  
I saw the dream blink,  
and for a moment,  
everything paused,
like a page waiting to be turned  
by a hand that doesn’t exist.

I met a man  
who claimed he was real.  
He showed me his scars,  
his taxes, his heartbreak.  
But when I asked him  
what he remembered before birth,  
he vanished  
like mist in a mirror.

I kissed a woman  
whose lips tasted like déjà vu.  
She said,  
"None of this is ours.  
We are guests in a story  
written by sleep."  
And I believed her,  
because her eyes  
were made of stars  
that had already died.

Even pain felt borrowed,
a sensation on loan  
from some deeper illusion.  
Even joy had the texture  
of something rehearsed,  
like a line in a play  
we forgot we were acting in.

And so I drift,  
not awake, not asleep,  
but somewhere in the space
between inhale and exhale,  
where the soul  
remembers it’s not a body,  
and the body  
forgets it ever mattered.

If this is a dream,  
then let it be lucid.  
Let me fly,  
let me fall,  
let me dissolve  
into the ink  
that writes the stars.

Because maybe  
the only truth  
is that we are stories  
told by silence  
to itself.

Blessed are the belly laughs
that ripple through the pews,
the snorts that break the solemn mask
and shake the sacred news.

For joy is not a quiet thing,
it tumbles, leaps, and spins.
The giggle gospel dares to sing
where reverence begins.

It's a wonder

worthy of faith,

to see a village

in a city block.

Person to Person,

strapping their

souls.

I could have gone to the cemetery,
or back to my high school lab,
find him lecturing from a podium,
bony finger raised,
demagogue of the dead.
I could break him down piece by piece,
cram him in a duffle,
a femur jutting the zipper.
Ignore the groan-
Skeletons are
by nature
never satisfied.

Instead I found myself
in the carnival lot,
The dog was long dead,
the sign kept guard.
Rusty rides slouched like tumbleweeds.
Cotton candy in memory-
blue tack crunching my teeth.
Lewd.

Skeletons fixed on poles,
spiked up through pelvis and spine.
Use ****.
Grip shoulders. twist. lift.
When one slid free,
he collapsed into my arms
all bone-light, lovely,
mine at last.

I just brought him home.
Sat at the kitchen table.
Named him Curly.
Zoom howled: WAG’s gone weird!
What’s his name? What’s his name?

His name is Curly,
I said, but I knew
his name was You.

We drink wine by the pool.
He never sips.
Sometimes I pour a second glass for the glint.
Sometimes he tells me Danny Elfman
wants to play his ribs like a xylophone.
Sometimes he sighs,
he hates Oingo Boingo.
I laugh. Obliging.
So do I.

When the wind kicks up
he smells of sugar and rust.
Sometimes he rattles the glassware.
Sometimes he won’t sit still.
Skeletons are
by nature
never satisfied.

Before sleep I knot a cardboard tag
to my big toe with baling twine.
Sometimes I think of stapling it -
ritual wants a clean edge.

She tolerates my oddities:
a posterboard of errands above the sink,
tea mug with its brown ring I refuse to clean,
I stand too close when the train arrives,
or climb ladders with one hand full.

Last summer a rogue wave flung me under;
I surfaced broken, collarbone split,
came home wrapped and aching.
She kissed the bruise and laughed,
as if I’d slipped the ocean’s grip,
as if the sea had lost its claim.

I call them accidents to sleep easier,
yet I flood the stove with gas,
strike a match, laugh at the plume,
convinced the fire means I’m alive
even as it scorches my hand.

At night she circles the bed,
tugging at my toe tag
as if it could bind me to her,
carrying me into the cabin,
a weight she won’t release.

This lilting night
in a world still trembling,
streets sag with silence,
the hush tastes of smoke.

A crow cuts low,
black wing against orange,
leans into the wind,
folds, veers.

Above the trees,
the sky wears a copper bruise,
clouds thick as wool,
the light already retreating.

Air carries the edge of change-
sharp as bitten tin,
wet as stone on the tongue.

All sound brittle:
screen door whining,
tires on gravel,
a match struck to nothing.

your page turning,
the small sigh after,
your breath, mine,
keeping time with the dark.

Perhaps life outside the seascape of emotion
is worth trying to, just live & never expecting
high demand.

Perhaps life gets bitter when your
too alone for such a long time, it's like
You seek company but you never did.

Perhaps life outside writing are more
Challenging than the play of words,
Trying to dare the truth that never
Comes out.

Perhaps life gets busy on things that
didn't matter, you laze around and
listening to stories never your own.
Trying to pass time, like a passerby
Never staying, you just fade in the
background of things you wish
it's Yours...

Perhaps life outside my inspiration
I'm too forgiving, too passive, and
too sensitive that I never care for
Myself. I care too much on my own
Prison that I forgot to believe on myself.

I don't write like I used too,
because I care too less like
I used too...