wanderlust

A Dreamy Poem About The Science Of Sleep, Wanderlust, And Falling In Love

Artwork by James Gallagher

My dreams are like visits to the museum.
Intentional, with a sense of purpose
But soon enough, I get lost.

The grand gates are open, wide and spacious, gigantic and elegant, magnificent
My bed pales in comparison but I know that when I lie down
The world expands ever so slowly and becomes
a cavernous fantasy where anything is possible
I step on the marble floor, with a soft thud
like how I place my head on my pillow
A soft hump, inaudible because of its softness
The cotton muffling the noise
But my step echoes in the silence of the halls
My head’s soft hump in my solitary room where no one but me
Walks to visit, lies down to sleep

I drag my feet through the seemingly endless halls with tall pillars
Like how I force my mind to altogether cease thinking
But I stop and peer in shut rooms where things are lurking
My mind knows I should move on, let my steps echo
In the seemingly endless halls with tall pillars
But my heart opens the doors and eyes blink several times to adjust to the dark
Light creeps in through invisible windows and I strained to see
My ears waiting for sounds
My heart pounding

For it opened a room with no cobwebs
but has been shut for some time
For it opened a room full of history
The ashes already rested but somewhere, some time
The ashes were gathering

I see a skull
It had empty sockets and a jaw stripped of flesh but still held some teeth
I see the back of your head, your face
It had bright, inquisitive brown eyes and a smiling mouth with a dimple carved on the left
It would deepen when you glance my way
Or when you see dozens of stars splayed on the night sky
like thin strips of cheese on a pepperoni pizza.

I see a box – hollow, the lid thrown on the side
Open and empty for the world to see
I see a box
Overflowing of letters with your crooked handwriting spelling out my name beautifully
telling of rendezvous in parks, hushed whispers on the back of your car
And screams on hilltops, hoping they travel to the city lights
and drown out the songs of turbines and engines and karaoke bars.
I see a box
Open and full for the world to see
I see lines of twine hanging from one end of the room to another
There are clothespins – jagged, broken, crumbling with time
But they do not have the strength to hold
the folds of my dress and the sleeves of your shirt
I see lines of twine hanging from one end of the room to another
Entangled with white little bulbs
Illuminating and invoking memories from square glossy papers
Held by clothespins
There we were, with mouths open, sentences suspended, eyes on each other
With the dormant Mt. Fuji on the back.
The laughter travels from the paper to my walls
Flying a few feet from my bed
Held by clothespins on the air
And the photographs float, illuminated, held, invoked

I step backward and it echoes through
the seemingly endless halls with tall pillars
My feet rushes on the marble floor, the room with no cobwebs shuts its doors tight
Goodbyes are bid as I pass through the grand gates
wide and spacious, gigantic and elegant, magnificent
They close but they will open for me
For me whose soft thud of head is muffled by the cotton
And whose tears and cries in sleep are made inaudible by the soft pillow

Unconsciously, instinctively
I pull the covers to my head
And I almost imagined your warmth against the cold hiss of the air
Like how you are brought to life by the a mere look at
The remains
You are a burial jar who is resurrected,
whose ashes turned to skeletons
And held me tight against your flesh-less bones,
a prisoner of love in your ribcage.

But tonight, I will sleep
Undisturbed, dreamless
All thanks to the white nothings I keep on the side of my bed.
There will be another night tomorrow
There will be the seemingly endless halls with tall pillars
There will be more rooms with no cobwebs to be visited.

Tomorrow night
The museum will be open.

—

Submitted to ArtParasites by Bee Manejar

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