Last night

I found a beach

hidden Away

from most in

this

Metropolis

Driving along

We came upon

this

beach

Volcanic sand

and overcast

and murky water

but

Beautiful

Giant

seashells

From the Cretaceous

Era

are piled high and

covered in

silken spiderweb

OH

how my seashells

Shine and Glisten

in the nonexistent

sun-shine

Iridescently

varnished by Nature

Braided and beaded

Royal and Aqua

Hidden in the deep blues

shells' belly

a

Smooth soft

Polished sand-tones

[I imagine what beautiful photographs I could capture in this breathtaking setting, when the sun catches the light in the shells]

There are people

in the Water and

on the beach

Wrinkled and

White-haired

but oh-so-tan

Water aerobic waders

So we flounder

and Explore

He swims

and the Fish

large as small

Children

disappear

into the murky

Water

as we get close

Ghosts of the ocean

In their whiteness

Fins

So sheer

Wings

on

Oceanic Angels

What a queer little dream...

I could hear myself narrating from somewhere.

But there nothing save for my raspy voice

preaching to me, myself, and I.

I’m not sure how I didn’t freak the fuck out at that point.

But around me was nothingness.

Pure, white, ennui.

So I sat. I listened.

The manic vowels and adverbs almost like bullets.

But no matter where “I” aimed

the metal never missed

yet the metaphors never hurt

and the maxims solely struck me in the chest

lodging only in my heart.

“Every single one of us;

struggling and trudging through life;

with maybe a cigarette in hand, bottle of wine in the other.

Love songs on repeat;

shuffling them almost as fast as our feelings.

Wanderlust burning through the soles of our soul.

Wanderlust burning through the bridges behind us.

As much as we try to convince ourselves;

drilling it into the hearts of those around us;

Nothing changes until we see what’s hidden underneath everything.

The axioms and smiles we fake over these scars.

Silver linings are just that unfortunately, linings.

It’s always the same,

—This time will be different.

—This time I promise you…

—Never again.

But bullshit envelopes everything, even when we don’t mean it to.

Love?

Love is the exception.

Love is dealing with the bullshit no matter how much it hurts.

Love is fucking up a million times and allowing yourself to be forgiven, even though you think you’re worth less than shit.

Love isn’t a goddamn honeymoon.

Love is the horrific act of caring, for no other reason than because you can’t help it.

No obligations, nothing to gain, just loving because every single atom of your body would rip you apart at even the thought of giving up.

Even if it rips you apart, flesh flayed from bone.

Fucking, smoking, long chemical romances, which always become way more than a one-night stand.

Lonely nights with an iPod and the sky. Cloudy, rainy, or clear as the tears shed like thunder.”

Panic sets in, and the light starts to dim as my vision tunnels.

Where am I going?

Will I wake up?

RingRingRINGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHNNNNNGGGG

—OH FUCK! Huh? Shit...

(Yeah, I usually wake up with a few colorful expletives to keep my vocabulary sharp.)

That’s my answer I suppose.

But shit;

to which question?

I was in music class watching a music video, when this commercial comes on.

It is a man talking.

"How do you tell multi avalanches from avalanches?" The man asks, and then suddenly I am in the commercial.

I am walking on a wide, snowy path when the man continues. "Multi avalanches happen in safe places but nobody is there. A quiet place. An empty place."

The commercial stops, but I am still walking.

Suddenly a plan comes to my head. I'm supposed to sleep in somebody's tent for the night.

It turns out, that somebody is a shriveled dude about an inch long. He seems a bit tired and drunk.

"Hello," I say.

"Oh, hey," he says. "Yeah... Go to bed..." And he starts snoring. Asleep.

I walk into the tent, which magically becomes an R.V., and there is another shriveled man sleeping in it, about three inches long.

I scream and pick up the man by his heels. I run out to the other shriveled guy, and I bang the three-inch-long dude on his head.

I am yelling, "Wake up! Wake up!" But the one-inch-long one just turns in his sleep.

Furious, I throw the three-inch-long dude off the cliff.

Then the original shriveled guy wakes up and says, "You did the right thing. He is dangerous. If you ever see him in a dream again, well, beware."

And I wake up.

I was standing next to my family we were all frighted because there was a pack of wolves circling the mountain in front of us. Each time they came around we hid behind the table we were standing behind. If the wolves saw you they would charge at you. The only words anybody said " get down they are coming." After awhile of doing this I found myself with my mom on a big water slide but I'm pretty sure we were flying. We were flying over this big fair. All of a sudden we were flying in a room with Cotten candy on all the walls. It was so cool!

Sadly I then woke up. :(

Two nights ago I had a dream I was eating at a Mexican restaurant with family. It was actually warm and sunny outside, so we ate on the outdoor seats, with the umbrella over us and all. I went inside to use the bathroom, when I noticed the whole building looked oddly lonely. The lights were dark, and many things looked abandoned. I walked into the lonely bathroom, and opening the stall a Mexican zombie attacked me. The thing was powerful by all means.. I kicked it as hard as possible, slamming the stall and escaping for my life. I walked to the register to report the little problem.

As I rung the bell, dozens of Mexican zombies came from the kitchen. I climbed windows, threw Mexican zombies into cooking equipment. Long story short, I finally killed all the Mexican zombies.

I walk back outside to my family, when I see them all laid back, stuffed with food. I looked at my plate and someone ate it too. They were all ready to leave, and I was PISSED because I wanted Mexican food.

I was then awoken by my alarm clock. I told my parents I'm going to be late for school. I then paced in my room for a whole hour getting myself to calm down, because I was still irritated and pissed about them eating without me.

I am generally a lucid dreamer, a practiced dream-observer and cataloger, often dreaming within dreams, even a dream's dream within a dream's dream, skipping around realities, playing with infinite possibilities, exploring the synchronicities of past, present, and future, and sometimes -even all together, and not always (or often) as my self or any tangible being that interacts; though there is always feeling. So, in a repertoire of relative weird including shark-slugs the size of Double-Decker Buses, Napkin Eaters (as a profession), tripping on drugs I've never tripped on, living as a canoe paddle, etc., how can I choose a winner?

I cannot. But here is a recent favorite of the strange,

from the night of April 20th 2015:

taking a walk through the jungle

admiring the play of light through the trees

and the dancing of butterfly’s and buzzing bees

seeming-to-be purposefully guiding me

through the thicket of shin-deep foliage

requiring one to pick-up their knees

when I came upon a clearing

drawing my eyes skyward

where a storm was brewing

all dark grays and purple

waiting... for just such a witness

so, I stood beneath the rain

watched a super-human body

basically 3D printed from the elements

to house an ancient kind of consciousness

requiring of two hearts and three brains

with a 34 count of ribs to accommodate it

and 7, double-knuckled digits per hand

for I-don’t-even-want-to-know what

constructed from skeleton to skin

with no hair to speak of

not even eye-lashes

maybe second eyelids…

strangely innocent

as if asleep in the clearing

midst rain-heavy fallen trees

home to worms and grubs

I can almost feel squirming

beneath their deepest shadows-

only to suddenly realize

my conscious body

hadn’t gotten there yet-

just now, entering stage-left

and circling the clearing

cautiously side-stepping

right into me-which-has-seen

becoming me, who is seeing

this naked-in-the-rain being

apparently sleeping

in the middle of the clearing

strangely innocent

and I make the mistake of

turning my back to look for… anything

that will give me a semblance of reason

for this naked, hairless giant to be resting

under an umbrella of rain soaking the clearing

but though I strain, I see and hear nothing

only sense an intensity baring down on me

whirling around again, with wide-eyes to see

those alien eyes looking down so softly

curiously, and maybe a little imploringly

having done so much for understanding

to be standing there, face to face

an open hearted mind of the human-race

and the newly homed ancient consciousness

filled with mutual awe beaming between them

the storm rumbled but quickly dissipated

sadly, taking the dreamer-part of me with it

back to the waking world

where Wolfie’s hungry

-M.E.

Once when I was younger, my great-grandmother told me about the old Oscar Meyer hot dog jingle ("I with I was an Oscar Meyer wiener / That's what I really want to be / 'Cause if I was an Oscar Meyer wiener / Then everyone would take a bite of me."). Sometime after she told me about it, I went to sleep on her couch.

In my dream, I had created a board game and I invited everyone in my family to come play it with me. When we started to set up the game, suddenly my little sister, a random Sonic character and myself were all transported on top of some large, tall rock. The rock was not very big around, was very tall, and had a flat top. Alongside the three of us, there was a single foldout chair.

Occasionally, a large set of rock stairs would appear. We would each take turns to go down the flight of stairs. At the bottom, there was what I can only describe at the ruins of a Roman Coliseum. There were a bunch of pillars, some destroyed, and a large, mostly destroyed arena. Where the arena once was, there was a dragon. Our goal was to go down the stairs, get to where the dragon was, and get back before the dragon saw us.

On one of my turns, I had made it to the last pillar before the dragon, and the dragon was sound asleep. While it slept, it was singing the Oscar Meyer hot dog jingle, but it wasn't singing "Oscar Meyer wiener," it was singing "Oscar Meyer pizza." It sang it's song very quickly while it slept: "I wish I was an Oscar Meyer pizza / That's what I really want to be / 'Cause if I was an Oscar Meyer pizza / Then everyone would take a bite of me." After it sang that very quickly, I looked at it with a very confused face.

Then I woke up.