Dream Recall

August 2023

My hair is always short in my dreams

I wake up even more charged from static, having raced throughout so many settings and ceilings

Confused on my mission and drenched from excavating new fears

Dusty and puzzled, i shake hands with brittle archaeology

My most recent dig was a trip to the hair salon; i don’t remember the context but i can still feel the split ends cascading down my neck

I shift my weight above the memory-foamed pleather
I can hear large scissors hovering around my back

Inanimate but buzzing with matter, sharp + cold + confident

The scissors make the decisions for me, a veteran hairstylist

The mirrors surrounding us lend me the sight to witness its soul-purpose

An angular dance, constant, slicing through the thick air

 —in its Fixed structure and large in shadow, my own distinctive angel wings

Very fairylike in its distancing—

i recall this dream of mine at the local poem event, a safe space to drift off and wander

Occasionally tuning back into sessions where I try to seek out their own recurring dreams from their oral recitings from leaflets— the current poet of the hour

Unless they’ve stated it, almost all poems can be insightful of the reciter’s dreams

and their vulnerabilities glisten in the air to age you

It’s weird having gathered here

a bundle of introverts coming together and quietly freaking out at how quiet it can truly get

A moment we are all too familiar with but locked in its trance of best behavior

Sitting, listening, as if I’ve been frozen since middle school

Recieving an introduction that causes listeners to creep up toward the saliva-drenched mic 

i follow the flow of wires like listening to a river

& as people laugh at A joke I remember we as people can laugh

But me as a person have drifted away from the one-sided conversation, yet again

Processing, if it was even funny. If it was worth it to break out of my scheduled inhale-exhale breathing to confirm

Laughter as a signaling of being here 😍

The diminishing of individualism- the feeling of community

The upgrade that only greets me when outside + in the sun

I think I get it now

Introverts can be funny, and I wonder if i’ve been projecting all onto what is seen

Like if those quiet beside me fail to share the introverted babble that is ongoing & able to be muted but you still see the subtitles near the peripheral

Like if they really listen and i’m too inward to face the sensitivities of the external

I am working on my projections, im not beating the project manager allegations

There is more work to do but it’s never the type who asks more of me, the lining of my internals,

A dispenser of credibility, seeping of professionalism,

This moment asks less of me

A more quiet approach to life

A walking barefoot on gravel, angry – as to where the grass resides

Maybe this is what dream recall is all about, reminders of chores

Daring you to deny and drift off yet again.