you close your eyes but what flashes before you is not a stream of dreams. you are not presented with unlikely circumstances, instead, you watch your worst nightmares unfold. you feel every touch just as you had felt it that dark and cold winter night you feel every emotion as if it had happened hours ago, not weeks, and you want to sleep but every time you do you cant help but remember how much it hurt and how disgusted you felt with yourself and with the world for allowing something so unbelievably degrading to happen to you this should have been prevented and all anyone can say is I should have been there to protect you but you were not even there to protect yourself. alcohol let your guard down and every idea sounded like a good one; if someone had told you to blow out your brains that night you probably would have and sometimes you think that's a better outcome because afterwards you do not have to reflect and wonder was it my fault? when you know you would say no if it were someone else in your position but it's not, it's you, and you are you but you are someone else and you have joined a community you never wanted to have to join and all you want to do is sleep

oh boy, where do i start?
the subtext to every movement in the game of life:
"you were in my dream last night" and "deja vu"
as hard as i try to forget you appear in my dreams and
i wonder if i dreamt you up to begin with
and then i wonder if someone dreamt me up to begin with
and someone dreamt them up to begin with
no one mention that ******* leonardo dicaprio movie

what about when a dream turns into a nightmare?
dreams so realistic, you wake up feeling as if you haven't slept at all
dreams that you've dreamt before
i dream while i'm awake

supposedly when you dream of someone, they miss you
do you miss me like my dreams swear you do?

am i dreaming right now?

i can hear the movement of my eyes as they flicker across suburban houses at the crack of dawn and spot faces that aren't there, the clouds caress the tops of trees and rooftops as they move slowly through the sky and i wonder how much time has passed since the last time i was here, moving through the grass and feeling morning frost on my feet instead of just going through the motions and feeling nothing at all