What Dreams Do Come

I woke up this morning a bit before 3 with this poem in my head and it felt right to send it along today. I have a sense this will end up in Geranium but we’ll see. The dream it came from felt real, and I’ve been having more of those lately for some reason or another. I didn’t know anyone in it, but it felt like who I was in it did know them if that makes sense, like I was just living in a different life for the night. I’ve heard theories about that sort of thing at different times, but I haven’t paid too much attention to dreams on a regular basis mainly because I spent so much of the last decade not dreaming at all, or at least not remembering them.

I think this will make me sound insane, but my life right now feels like a cycle of these sorts of things. My favorite moments lately have been making Shabu-shabu with my girlfriend with H Mart ramen packets and semi-random vegetables. And last night we were sitting at the kitchen table eating it out of the pan and watching TV and she turned to me and said she thinks when we die we just are born again, and for maybe the first time in my life that felt beautiful in a personal way. One form of reincarnation or another has been around me since I can literally remember, and the machine of it sounded wonderful as long as it left me alone. The idea of another life after this one felt physically and emotionally exhausting, and the concept of mandatory joy and permanent worship services felt so horrendously boring that I could not complain fast enough. And while this sounds like a joke, I don’t think I even liked the concept of heaven in any sincere way until I heard John Prine sing about smoking a 9 mile long cigarette there as soon as he arrived.

I have a hard time believing that whatever’s after this is a theme park, but the birth metaphor makes sense to me whether we come out the other end back here again or somewhere else. And regardless of what does or doesn’t happen, this explanation of the afterlife by Keanu Reeves is the best thing I’ve heard on the topic and it’s now what I go back to most when I need a bit of grounding. I don’t know that I can explain why it feels each night like I fall asleep and wake up somewhere else, and then fall asleep there and wake up here, but it does and this poem is what I came back with this time. How hilarious will it be if it sucks lol, like some other thing in some other place out there is sending me everything from its bad drafts folder. It needs some work for sure, but you can check it out below in its first form and I hope Wednesday takes good care of you.

Ember