Lucid

A lion lunges in the dark,

Maws agape, 

Teeth shining in the shadows.

The ground splinters and splits,

the sky melts into murmurs.

I’m running, like molasses,

To where, I don’t know,

So long as it’s away from here. 

The nightmare pulses,

a heart that beats too heavy.

But the fear—

Now that is familiar.

Then, a flicker:

A sound. A light. A crack in the scene.

A tear in the tapestry.

This isn’t real.

The dream unravels like thread in the wind,

its edges softening,

its terror tamed.

The lion fades 

into a house cat,

stretching lazily beneath a sun spot.

I laugh.

The absurdity spills out of me,

like water breaking free of a dam.

The nightmare—

it was only waiting to wake me.

And now I know:

This world, this stage,

this elaborate masquerade,

is mine to play,

or leave untouched,

Unattached. 

I spin the moon on my fingertip,

pull rivers from the mountains

like ribbons from a hat.

The fire doesn’t burn anymore.

The storm doesn’t scare me.

The masks fall away,

but the players remain.

I’m both the dreamer and the dream,

the watcher and the watched.

And when the final scene fades,

when the curtain falls for the last time,

I will know

I was only ever playing,

and it was all

a dream.