a dream woke me up
returning from a journey returning from out there back to the silken waters of civilization
I could feel myself slipping back in
past the guards over the fence and into the canals
flowing out of the dream and into consciousness
and at first my heart ratcheted unwelcome memories of being human
the sad single room I had chosen for myself in my final year of college back to my loneliness back to emotions and thoughts distilled into bouts of insanity and terrifying creativity
remembering the artist I ran away from
and then past the little apartment in Rockland where I came back to myself
surviving loneliness that swallowed me and spit me out again like my dream
my consciousness moved through both
drawn out by the words “the silken waters” and the hope of capturing the transition between dream and volition in a poem I slipped out of bed took glasses and notepad into the guest room and settled into writing
remembering all of this before once more
disappearing