iffageek falls

Dreams.

Why is it that the dreams I most
want to remember are the ones that left me
shaken, uneasy, glad to find out that
"it was just a dream," after all?

Not the screaming, flesh-creeping
nightmares, ...

.. but the dreams where
everything is subtly wrong, where bad
things happen to everybody for no reason,
where sometimes, I have a feeling that
I could change things if I wanted to,
but I strain to make things right, and
still fail, or worse, I don't even try...

.. but the times where I'm working against a
deadline, trying to save the world, or a friend,
or just my sanity, where everyone knows
this and has "just one more thing" for
me to do before I can go, one more thing
I didn't get quite right and am
obligated to fix for them...

.. but the dreams where everybody I know
acts exactly as I want them to...

..And I wake up exhausted, unsettled,
relieved ... and vaguely disappointed.

Some people might ask why their subconscious
hates them so much, why they are
tortured regularly with such terrible accuracy, by
the only thing that knows them better than they know
themselves.

Personally, I never ask. Why ask
questions when I know that the
answer will just upset me? Besides,
I don't have time for silliness.

For as the wisps of dream quickly
evaporate in the morning sun, they
are slipping through grasping fingers,
ignoring all pleas to hold still just long enough
to be captured, framed, and hung on the wall of
expression, or at least snapped up by the
Polaroid of memory, to await future inspiration.

No. I don't need to ask why my subconscious
hates me. I'm too busy trying to recall as many
disturbing elements as I can, but also trying to
hold on to the hazy limbo of half-awake.

Even here, I work against myself, for
memory only works when awake,
and the visions flee at the cold
touch of reality.

I weep.

mm
06/12/04