I am plagued by a dream of you
I am plagued by a dream of you
sat on the outside step
that’s overgrown with moss,
lighting a cigarette
and when I open the gate
you look complete,
like all your pain makes sense
even just for the time
within sight of your good influence
or sometimes I dream you are opening
the main door to the house
laughing at the shittest paint job I’ve ever seen,
Woodhall’s half finished, you say,
He can’t paint as well as he washes pots, it seems,
and I smile at the simplicity of it all
in this house where I am safe
with this boy who I never fear
when I dream of him in this light
and not up the mountains there,
teetering towards self destruction.
or there is the dream where I’m crouched in the bathroom
cracked tile floor
faulty light switch,
fractured mirror on the wall,
digging my feet into the ground like I did when I was a child,
afraid of the word chickenpox—
trying to reassure and breathe
but what kind of pain is right?
why do you get to lie in bed post-ecstasy
while I am trying not to cry on the toilet seat,
ready to walk back in there
as everything you desire?
at the end of the dream
I’m in your bed wide awake,
your room embellished with fragments of me,
a flannel falling off the sink
hair bobbles on the table that I’ll never get back—
are you listening
are you listening to me?
the drugs have sent you to sleep—
you flinch, tremble, cling to me like an anchor
like a mad man from the hospital is snatching you from your bed,
I think he snatched me instead
because in my head I’ve taken five steps back
and I am turning over and over
this hateful information
this hateful information which is not mine any more
I was standing
when you told me everything too soon
and you are talking but all I can hear is
the voice in Mum’s head doing to her what you do to you
and it’s breaking my heart
I didn’t tell you to stop
I didn’t run out the room
I didn’t fall to the ground because I knew you wouldn’t catch me,
you’re too busy lying and trying to distract me
you’re too busy shouting about the man you want the world to see,
who is this man you are desperate to be?
if he is your opposite
then all hope is gone,
if he is your equal
then God help us all—
I want my dad
I need my dad to stop the fall again,
you are a world of contradiction and I can’t keep up,
I am breathless from running.
you are capable of setting me alight but only on your terms,
only if you burn first
and I am drowning in a timeless flood that crashes,
crashes,
freezes
and now we are here
and I am plagued by a dream of you
again and again.