Some Dreams

a poem

Robert Delaunay, public domain

Some dreams visit the wrong beds,
like wandering drunks,
slurring, stumbling,
staggering,
they enter the wrong heads,
at the wrong time,
bringing hope
when fate has other plans.

Some dreams offer sleepers
something elusive to long for —
a state of bliss where everything
is beautiful, and nothing hurts,
like addicts, they know better,
and still choose to live in denial.

You and me, that was a dream
we shared as we walked
through life in our sleep,
never quite seeing all the ways
we didn’t fit except with arms and lips,
a few words here and there,
until, at last, we landed
where drunks do, rock bottom.

In abstinence,
with eyes wide open, mind alert,
I no longer dream of me and you,
or of romantic, intoxicating love.