y'know,
                                                        ­             *i wanted to tell you,

i started keeping a dream journal.  it was pretty mundane at first (well, mundane for dreams).  flying through buildings, rooms melting into other rooms, people giving speeches in their underwear. i wrote it all down in my shaky, scribbly, half-awake catscratch haptic handwriting and gleamed when i filled the lines with dots and scribbles that only my mind could translate back to english, radio waves making music from garbled slush.  scribbles flooded into my mind in the days and months after, though everything was unfailingly crystal clear like diamonds pressed in forms and tucked away to giggle and fawn over later.

                                           but recently i haven't been able to write some of it down

because
you started making appearances.

at first the cameos were confusing; i ignored them and assumed your roles in my nonsensical night visions were coincidences (metaphorical you couldn't possibly hold more meaning than metaphorical math teacher or metaphorical adam from class the previous day).  and the scribbles were as detailed as before, every moment jotted down with unending diligence.

(but one night you were right
there
next to me.
as close as the last time i saw you,
your hip against mine.
i could feel you.
i couldn't see your face but i knew it was you.
i knew with the
pit
of my stomach.
i felt it in every part of me and it
hurt.)

and then the cameos came more frequently.
and then the scribbles came out a little slower.
a little more calculated.
i wondered if i wanted to remember everything i saw in those dreams,
if it was all going to be as fun as jumping from mountain to mountain.
why were you sitting next to me in the theater seat when i got called on to recite lines
that i never learned?
why were you smiling next to me like you did on those days i could do no wrong?
why
were
you
next to me when my stomach turned into a pit of rotten, nervous train wreck?
the curtains closed and the lights shattered and dimmed,
the pit became heavier than the buildings (now wrecked) that i used to leap with no fear
condensed,
******* in everything i could conceive in those slumbering hours,
swallowing the world and turning to caked ebony the world i built up as my playground.

(daniel awakes to find his playground is a sandbox no more;
he awakes with a heavier pit than he's ever known before.
today, when by passing glance his former lover he beholds,
the pit of dreams in life now endlessly unfolds.)

[ENTER PIT, SWALLOWING HIS THOUGHTS IN MURKY BLUE,
A MUFFLED SCREAM FROM BEHIND THE CURTAINS RINGS TRUE!]

f i n a l l y
i t   r e c e d e s.
but even when i see your name (with my eyes or in my mind's eye),
it explodes into being, shifting the balance of the universe onto the pit of my stomach.  i can FEEL it, pounding through every inch of me until i'm physically reeling, elbows on knees, hands on face.
and. . .
i'd carve my stomach open in between staggered, screaming heartbeats faster than the concentrated swill could spill out if i thought for a second that i could purge this pit that's plagued me for longer than
i'd ever admit.

He's got a mouthful of rain.
A dead goose in one hand, a sharp axe in the other,
lying crosswise on the flooded lawn.
His breakfast was feathers and catscratch.

He's ******-minded about the whole thing -
  his rotting toes poke through pastel orange New Balances
  and are perched on the edge of forgettable.
He says he's daring God
to **** him or give him a dollar
  but really
he shouts catastrophe at traffic and fluid dynamics
and if somebody gave him a rose
he wouldn't know what to do with it
except chew it
petal and thorn.

I'm close to him because I, too, am going to die
eventually, and between now and then any home I have
is a coldwater solitaire flat
  - beans and egg and cheap cheese and salsa -
and when I look up I drown like dumb poultry
looking for a pair of fingers:
  snap
  snap

Legs crossed,
Riding my bike over the curvature of these roads,
Their patterns I've memorized,
The people in each house,
I remember.

I pass by Blue,
The house where A stole my hat
And made me chase him down the street,
Childhood crushes and games of catscratch,
His father called me "Sweetheart" once.

I'm so tired today, I couldn't sleep last night.

I take a breath,
And pass by Red,
The house where B walked his dog daily,
He was getting very old and acted very young,
Talking to him made me smile.

I nearly fall going around a curve, and my shoelace is ripped in the chain.

I take another breath.
I pass by Yellow,
The house where I visited C for new year's night.
It brings regrets and shame, but I hate to show it,
So I sit up straighter and with pride while in view.

I go around a second curve and go down a hill, picking up speed.
I pass a car, the driver and I exchange waving hellos.

I get home, dripping sweat.
I enter White,
The house where I have the most memories,
But that I did not begin in as a baby,
And that I don't think about remembering as much as the others.