Nightmare

Sometimes, I write poems

We had a nightmare.
It was silicone carbon silicon myopia
It was glitz and God and superhighways
It was cocaine powertrip world domination
It was fentanyl suicide
It was internal combustion expedience and carcinogen dogma
It was LED smut and plastic orgasms
It was CIA blacksite poppy field oil field terrorism
It was magic Jesus megachurch Saturday morning cartoons
It was smokestack ash in children’s lungs
It was bulldozer fiat
It was razor wire lines on a map
It was every man for himself
It was the power to kill across the knoll and across the sea
It was Tomahawk execution and Hellfire extermination and UAV plausible deniability
It was the idea that everything was wrong and nothing mattered
That the stakes were too high
That we were prisoners doing time
That we were strangers in a strange land
That we were other
That we were illegal
That we were immoral
That we were rich
That we were poor
That we were dirty and guilty and fundamentally wrong inside 
That we had to improve ourselves
That we had to be fixed because we weren’t the way we were supposed to be

We had a nightmare that we were alone
That we weren’t loved
That we weren’t important
That we weren’t good enough
That we weren’t going to make it
That the day was short and the night was endless
That reality was dead and we were a freakshow
That we had to keep going no matter what
That good and evil were flesh and blood
That right and wrong were on a ballot
That the map was the territory
That the game wasn’t worth the candle

We forgot who we were
We forgot what mattered
We forgot to laugh
We forgot to cry
We forgot to trust ourselves
We forgot we were dreaming

The more we thought the less we felt
The more we fixed the more was broken
The more we built the more we destroyed
The more merciful we became the greater was our cruelty
The more correct we became the more false was the world

Until

Right was wrong
Love was hate
Truth was lies
Pain was pleasure
Hope was despair

Someday the nightmare ends
We rise and scrub our eyes
We can see again
We can hear again
We can love again
We expand outward and encompass all that is
Nothing is done and nothing is left undone
There is no one left to hear or to see
And everything is seen and everything is heard

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