IT WAS ONLY A BAD DREAM

"All that we see or seem

is but a dream within a dream."

-- Edgar Allan Poe

In my dream,

you wake me

from a dream

to tell me all

about your dream.

It seems

that in the dream

(I dreamed

you dreamed),

I’d only speak

of troubled sleep,

of how it seems

that in my dreams

I’m always waking

from these dark,

relentless dreams.

In these dreams

(I dream I dream),

you reach to me,

to touch my hair,

but I turn cold

and sharp away,

I wake up in

the world I’d left,

the one that was

without you,

without sleep,

where no one lives

but without love,

and always, always

dreaming.

In this dream

(you dream I dream)

I reach to you

to touch your hair,

but you turn cold

and sharp away,

so that, in my dream

it almost seems

you always were

a dream within

a dream, within

a dream.

"They're only

dreams,”

I start to say,

and reach down for

your little head,

but in my dream

you've slipped away.

And I wake up

alone, instead.

ML