Dream Transcription
Winter, 2015 — the year I worked so nonstop, I forgot what I looked like in a mirror
Feature night at South-by, after the show ended Crowds mute and missing, sky buzzed, overly dark The marquee celebrity perches, unnoticed On the top step of a grandstand I designed, Nameless, for the corporate entity that keeps Keys to hasp and staple, hinge and Label on those hatches leading down to my Creative life, in a dungeon, gasping.
The set is real. I sketched it up last month, Stayed lit three nights to meet the deadline That gave me pneumonia. Now in REM Sleep He appears, with a capital ‘H’ spoken In an aching British accent, Mr. Fame sighs When He lands in my green-lit Oasis Where I am bringing Him with casual abandon One dream-temp, soul-bare drink of water.
Taking the glass, He says, “That is Without a doubt The nicest thing anyone has Done for me in the longest time.” Tall and standing, I lean forward, answer Freely, sounding like a person I remember Once being, “No. The greater kindness Is that you allowed yourself to receive it.”
Sometimes it takes a world-weary celebrity, hitching a ride across your down-trodden psyche to wake you up so you can notice your skills and drive have worked against you in the ease and flow department.
Take the glass, Love. This time it’s better to receive than give — ere gifts turn brittle, far too sparse and little.
The dream lasted a few brief seconds. Choices and decisions that followed since the moment I woke up and wrote it down continue to pay off. I finally admitted to myself that I live to create — and that means novels, worlds, passages between the seams of reality, poetry — as much as possible on my terms.
It hasn’t all gone smoothly, but I’m rarely parched the way I was back then.
Props to Samantha Lazar and ◦•●Christina M. Ward ●•◦ whose May Writing Experience nudged me to stroll through old dream journals. This one seemed to jive with the challenge in Week Two: The Hero’s Journey.
For more on facing fears, you might also like this little rant:
