Sweet Dreams - Sept 20 2022

 

Sweet Dreams

Sept 20 2022

The alarm

burst into my sleep

with a piercing jangle

that wouldn't stop.

And like a drowning man

who has surrendered to the dark seductive depths

I felt myself being dragged back

groggy and gagging

to the bright abrasive surface.

My dream, already incoherent

drifted into fragments

before vanishing,

sinking down

through fading light

and quickly out of reach;

like the keys I dropped in the lake

and couldn't move fast enough

to retrieve,

plunging in an arm

shoulder deep,

desperately flailing

and stretching far as I could.

Was my dream important?

A portent, perhaps,

like some ancient oracle

pronouncing my fate?

Maybe a rehearsal

to reinforce some learning

from the previous day?

Or a clarification,

a truth

I’ve been struggling to elucidate?

Or was it simply the noise

of idling neurons

leaking out,

the random signals

of a depleted brain

restoring itself?

But how sweet it was,

dreaming deeply

submerged in sleep;

that timeless escape

into oblivion,

that painless rehearsal of death.

And then the dream I can't forget,

that time after time

jolts me awake in a sweat

in a rumpled bed

in the depths of night,

pulse racing

hands tightly clenched.

Covers on the floor,

clammy sheets

twisted in knots.

If only

my recurring nightmare

could sink out of reach

like today's fugitive dream.

But it seems no alarm can shatter it,

no amount of time exhaust

its gut-wrenching power.