Tabitha Vohn's Blog - Posts Tagged "fears"
In Dreams
“Poetry is what happens when I can’t say what I want to someone I love.”—Nicole Blackman, NYC 1968.
I have dreams
I don’t wanna tell you about
easier to text you in the night
say “Love, are you alright?”
than to creak across truth
boards I’m afraid will wake
nightmare realities I can’t
put to rest, can’t put an end to
the past with no key
no answers
that make sense
no closure
except to accept that
I have you back
and I’m not sure
how I lost you
in the first place.
When I argued with you
in a dream
You said, “If you only knew what
I’m being put through
just to be able to talk to you
right now,
you wouldn’t be giving me all this shit”
Your words were a fist and I
jolted in bed
shaken
since then
Each button I press
becomes a Gravity
wondering
Will today be the day he stops
speaking to me?
Again.
My fingers tread landmines
same as my mind when I
try and come up with new
and inventive ways to say
three syllables
devolved into
charged sky danger
“and shit”
or even to ask about your day
I factor dates and times
spaces in between replies
the past is a sour note I’m
not looking to repeat
I wish I understood
my part in all that happened
I don’t know how not
to remake mistakes I’m
not even sure were mistakes
--to you--
to begin with
I wish
I could still my heart
with the same “easier said than done”
lullabies I used to sell you
about how dreams are not prophesies
--But you’re in my heartbeats--
and I don’t know which is worse, Love:
living without you or waiting to live
without you again
This tiptoe traipse
This high wire I’m trying to find
my balance on
Trying to keep the peace with
especially my own
I hope someday there’ll be a place
a time to confess all this to you
In the meantime
I also had a very sweet dream:
It was a crowded cafeteria
and I was coming to find you
because we had been there with
our families and I started to leave
without saying goodbye.
You’d morphed into ten years old!
Gold hair tucked under a baseball cap
that was almost too big for your head
white tee shirt
You were sitting hunched over some
homework
Your face was lit up angel glow when
you saw me
I held you and you said “I love you”
You went back to your homework and
I left so happy
that you had said it first.
I have dreams
I don’t wanna tell you about
easier to text you in the night
say “Love, are you alright?”
than to creak across truth
boards I’m afraid will wake
nightmare realities I can’t
put to rest, can’t put an end to
the past with no key
no answers
that make sense
no closure
except to accept that
I have you back
and I’m not sure
how I lost you
in the first place.
When I argued with you
in a dream
You said, “If you only knew what
I’m being put through
just to be able to talk to you
right now,
you wouldn’t be giving me all this shit”
Your words were a fist and I
jolted in bed
shaken
since then
Each button I press
becomes a Gravity
wondering
Will today be the day he stops
speaking to me?
Again.
My fingers tread landmines
same as my mind when I
try and come up with new
and inventive ways to say
three syllables
devolved into
charged sky danger
“and shit”
or even to ask about your day
I factor dates and times
spaces in between replies
the past is a sour note I’m
not looking to repeat
I wish I understood
my part in all that happened
I don’t know how not
to remake mistakes I’m
not even sure were mistakes
--to you--
to begin with
I wish
I could still my heart
with the same “easier said than done”
lullabies I used to sell you
about how dreams are not prophesies
--But you’re in my heartbeats--
and I don’t know which is worse, Love:
living without you or waiting to live
without you again
This tiptoe traipse
This high wire I’m trying to find
my balance on
Trying to keep the peace with
especially my own
I hope someday there’ll be a place
a time to confess all this to you
In the meantime
I also had a very sweet dream:
It was a crowded cafeteria
and I was coming to find you
because we had been there with
our families and I started to leave
without saying goodbye.
You’d morphed into ten years old!
Gold hair tucked under a baseball cap
that was almost too big for your head
white tee shirt
You were sitting hunched over some
homework
Your face was lit up angel glow when
you saw me
I held you and you said “I love you”
You went back to your homework and
I left so happy
that you had said it first.
