Every night for as long as I can remember I have vivid dreams, and for a long time I diligently wrote them down each morning in detail, looking for feeling tones, patterns, lessons, metaphors. I stopped doing that, as I found just being with the images of the dreams more powerful than the reporting of them on paper, and the reporting disenchanting. The images were something my right brain wanted to protect — and the morning journal-dump felt like a left-brain task, trying to control or reduce the ineffable. For awhile I thought about drawing the images to bring them to my waking life, but that task felt intimidating given my rusty drawing abilities.
Recently, I’ve been drawn to poetry as a means for working with the dreams and this has unlocked a universe of inspiration & meaning. I love writing poetry, but I’d stopped in recent years. My story was that in the past the creative inspiration came from unprocessed trauma, anger, guilt, and as I “healed” and became less identified with my angsty-poet self it felt like there was less to write about.
I seem to have found a new muse! I’ll see what it’s like to share some poetry here. Perhaps Substack isn’t the right medium for it but I will find out.
Happy New Year <3
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You do not have to know why
Last night you swam with dolphins,
Their skin black with wetness,
Noses lifted above waves for kisses.
You do not have to know why you thought some of them were killer whales,
In disguise,
Praying on the playful innocent.
You do not have to know why
The other night you dreamt of murder,
A man, who caught your path on a string,
Who ate your mother and sister,
Who fearful, meek, were not capable of fighting back.
You blamed yourself.
You do not have to know why you then
Fled through the belly of the building,
Down the 13 stories of the school you were shaped in for 13 years,
Skipping flights, Landing on pipes,
when through the front doors announcing your freedom.
You do not have to know why you so often dream of college,
Of housing arrangements,
Rooms filled with girlfriends
Negotiating spaces, leases, belongings, cats.
Preparing for long winters.
You know why last night you dreamt of being held,
Warm, entangled as one with your beloved.
You do not have to know why,
but you just might.