Prison Dream

I was in prison, needing to escape, for what I'm not sure. Another inmate decides to help me by smuggling me out in the van. All I had to do was lay down on the middle seat and cover up with a stiff coat while she drove out through the gated guard station. She slipped the van right around the security arm, and then I was free. I don't remember getting out of the van, but suddenly I'm standing outside the prison, which now looks like a multi-storied office building, and it is raining. I think, I have to get back in there, so I run back into the complex, around the same security arm I just rode through, slipping in the sandy mud that hinders my steps. Poussey and Taystee are at the guard shack. watching me run back in, looking at me in confusion and, possibly, disgust. 

A dream

  Christopher was four or so. He was sitting on my lap, facing me, his hands in mine. I am bouncing and jostling him while nearby adults prattle in conversation. He leans forward, touching his forehead to mine, and he says "Our heads are different coloured strait-jackets."

  Later in the dream, I am sitting at a long, rectangular dining table with a white tablecloth laid out. I am recounting to the same adults from earlier what said the child. 

Photograph

Sitting, huddled in the hull
nearly helpless in the heaving sea,
searching, hoping, 
for home

A thought

There is so much soul-suffering around me
Can none of us be saved?

The Birthday

We took the weekend
to celebrate, to renew, to rejoice.
You chose the place, 
planned the trip, and rolled with the detours
showing me the reborn You
and teaching me, more than ever,
about extraordinary love.
I think we are both more certain now
that You have coughed up demons and 
expelled anxieties for us both—
it's good to have You back; it's
good to have You new.

Your birthday was yesterday; it was a week ago
water came down; and water came up
You drowned Your sorrows
and You were bathed by heaven

Things I think

Harpsichord and strings, all the Bachs
the trees dance to the vigorous strains
where was I

I missed so much, kids
you have to give them everything when they're young, but
trauma

I wasn't around violence
just a constant broken heart
and a void so big it crushed me.

What about the laundry
it doesn't matter at all
now

So warm outside, so
cold inside
So cold outside, so
warm inside

I want a violin
I want a camera
chimera

I want You
to want better, to want me
to want You, want Us, them

I thought I saw You just now
driving up, I take a sip
and see a collection of delivered notes

Chilly Down, chilly brass
Excuse me, hello
lost your head, the body will mind

Water falls, the waterfall
Niagara, here we come, come
hell or high water

Go in go deeper
and I see that You do
what I do

You so long and strong and
broken and wonderful and
hopeless, and me

Short-round, he used to call me
and it's true, I'm short and
my thoughts go around and stray

I want to say so much and the difficulty
is so great, but I see how You do
and I feel myself slowly waking

It's 3:33 and I wish
I wish I wish I wish
I wish

My Waking Dream

The dress was late. It should have been here by now, so I'm wearing just my underclothes, but there are people all around—
  "Is this confidence?" she asked. "No, it's just too hot in here."—

I'm clutching a bunch of  aubergine, golf-ball sized fruits on long stems. I can feel their weight as they bob and sway with my movements. I'm supposed to address the crowd, but the shame of the missing dress is too much, and I begin to cry. 

You ran down stairs to get me, and then we were out in the crisp and clean and cold night. I remember the moon in Your eyes.

I dropped the fruits back there, and I can see their stain on the path behind me. Flickering lights make me turn. Something is shining, white and blue with pale green at the edges, but it is too bright to see who or what. But we are neither of us afraid. 

The light gellifies, and begins to blob around (gegenuber).

I hear You cry out.