i’ll see you in dreams (but it’s not you)

a grand illusion--

living your life in shreds

(forgetting one moment to the next)

waking up from a dream

so visceral you can

barely breathe.

and facing the faces

that you can't see--

can't quite remember

(blurred into memories weak with time)

smelling salts, perhaps

for the next time you

fall asleep, because this

time you might not wake.

might fall so fast into

the dream that you don't

remember why it is you

need to open your eyes at all.

(or else wake on shaking legs

with ice-lidded eyes and the

hazy feeling that there's something

you're supposed to get back to--

something forgotten,

or only just remembered?--

a grand illusion?--

leaving you questioning,

your life in shreds.)