Dreams

Have you ever dreamed a nostalgic dream

about unreal people and an unreal thing,

and it felt realer than your life that day,

and your emotions frayed like wires that day,

though it never really happened?

You died inside when you woke from sleep,

you were more alive inside your dream,

that cowardly hunk of cells in your head

was braver when your mind was dead

as it explored things that never happen.

In that world you were charged with wanderlust,

with electric courage to let yourself be touched

by a stranger, by a friend, by your soul, by God,

all the things you’ve made sure to keep far off

so that nothing ever happens.

Why can’t that constantly glitching brain

turn “what if” to “why not” when you’re awake,

why can’t you find a way to say,

to live, to breathe a different way

about things that never happen?