The Salesman Coming After Me

The Salesman Coming After Me

March 19th: eyes struggle to pull themselves open

five years in and the death

has finally, once again, breeched my windowsill

this time not with

fake black ninja masks, a laughable dream them

I think it was more sinister, now—

ninjas, invading southwest Ohio when southwest Ohio mattered to me

But now they’ve taken the East—

or taken it again, but it was taken previously in waking

it previously was real

Now, a dream—but a dream which made too much sense

would I give up?

Maybe, and I know I would throw things

chapstick caught in the grass

and everything would be a secret from prying relatives—

were you unsure?

statistics and facts mangling the propaganda in my brain

when I wake there is no sense

everything feels wrong and what I feel is not alive

I want the boys down the hall

to vanish, and I wish it were a real Friday, and I wish

your phone was answering my call

Have to wait until my alarm would have gone off anyway

an exam today—I can’t study

can only repeat the words of the only song that seems to matter

in between “it was just a dream”

while knowing that for those out there with less luck than me

my bad dreams

are an inevitable part of their lives

they can’t escape

(3/19/08)