there was a girl i used to love. in the nights, while everyone was asleep, she would crawl into the bathtub, and kneel in the hot spray.
when the water got cold, and the boilers in the basement wheezed, she would dry off, and get dressed.
everything was colder after the heat. she would leave, and sit by the river. it was best in winter, when it was below freezing and nobody came out.

sometimes the sunshine is too much,
the way i need to lock myself in my room, and bring my body low, to the floors,
the way it puts its roaming mouth on my throat, my clavicles, my bared shoulders in the loose, hanging dress, and there is no fight.
they say you can't touch the light, but maybe you can't feel it unless you've got cold fingers, cold skin, or unless you want to be feeling it.

light is apart from all things adjacent.

-

i've taken to arguing with the dream people.

dream-lover in my bed confesses love to me in the dark, and i tell him that i am asleep and he doesn't know he's not real, only another figment of my mind, so i am trying to wake up. and then i wake- know it's another dream,
tell more dream figures that they are things of my mind, and they ask, how does a butterfly know he is not dreaming of reality? and i tell them that as real and convincing it all feels, i know, unless i'm bound in a cell, completely out of my mind.

and then i wake.

sunday, i was murdered, three dreams in a row. they are dream strangers, stabbing me to death. one was a blonde beauty. another, a madman. another, i can't remember. i argue with them all, tell them nonplussed, that it is a dream, and that they are figments, as scary as they might be if they were real. they don't believe me, and separately kill me. i wake up unphased- i've been killed before.
i suppose i just didn't like the dreams, otherwise, perhaps i'd humor them, and play along. there is a reality.

what does it mean when you fight the strangers in your dreams, tell them the truth about their reality, and they don't believe you? does it mean they want to be real, or is it because they don't believe me, or is it because i want them to not believe me? i suppose it's good that my dreams never stare back at me, and look at me, deep into who i am. they are never sentient of me, like strangers.

-

sometimes in writing too long, i feel like i'm losing myself.
is that why you shouldn't steal characters from your dreams?
what if you fall in love with them?

the snow falls.

the way the nights go, i think, perhaps it is time for running, shoes and concrete. something about the way the leaves are falling, in my mind, along the hudson. june, june, there is no rain.

shoes and concrete, shoes and concrete. something cut out of me. maybe somebody knows what i mean.

we don't walk this way anymore, they tell me.

the sweetness of night air kills. slow sweet breath. sweet breeze kisses on my cheeks, the way i can't let anything else. sometimes we know the water comes from the heart.

come running with me, i want to say. i can't. my feet are tired. i am tired. dream walking. how many hours until morning?
-not enough. and too many.

somebody must know what i mean, but berryman is dead.

they say, listen to your mother, but i know mothers are often wrong.
what they should say: never give away the heart your mother gives you. you will never get it back, and it will kill you.


-


the time traveler has no idea of anything, except of her own happiness. all photographic ink. blues, and skies, and so much flowing dark hair. but she is not a woman.

may is dying but somewhere, the trudging in february snow. what are you carrying? why are you still cradling the cracked airlessness in your hands?

go to sleep.
i can't.

i can't. shams and shambles. i don't need a new house.
i would never tell my mother. i would never tell anyone. if only it would stop seeping.