this poem is inspired and directly derived from a dream i woke up from/with

on February 15, 2023

and is an experiment of raw dreaming dialogue and internal dreaming monologue to express the dreamt experience in poetic format using minimal metaphoric phrasing and language

a familiar woman sitting on the couch
in your house asks me
how many hours do you have to yourself
i am perplexed: “all of them”
they’re all my hours

the roof begins leaking
the one you fixed last year
the one i was reading under while she asked me about my hours
i noticed when the book
suddenly became smattered with rain drops
water drops or raindrops, what’s the difference

it was a Rugrats coloring book
i don’t know what page i was on
but Angelica was waiting to be colored-in and one of the boys was saying “mommy” in a speech bubble
it must’ve been a thought bubble because the Rugrats, except for Angelica, are not verbal

i said, well, i can’t sleep in here, now
even though i wasn’t sleeping in there anyway
i was sleeping in your two spare bedrooms/ one has a bed with a pink chenille bedspread and i prefer that one, even though i hate the color pink, inexplicably/ hate is too strong, i like some pink things, but i never knew you liked chenille

you say, “wait.”, as I get up to go to one of the bedrooms
you strip off your shirt, no bra
showing me your breasts and torso
in the poor light of the hallway
while the roof is leaking/

the water damage, water or rain damage, what’s the difference, spreading across the
white, newly painted ceiling/

you don’t let him smoke in here anymore, huh?
“i haven’t let him for a long time”

i somehow claim both spare rooms and beds
even though i can’t sleep in two places at once/
my own greed confuses me
where will the familiar woman sleep
hey! is she the one who watered my plants
when i went to Albuquerque? no, but there is a disappearing resemblance

pointing to your chest you say, “i have a dynamic rib”
i somehow how understand this even though i have never in my life heard or thought of these two words together as a medical condition, as a meat dish or as a metaphor

i see it has punctured through your skin
sticking out, infecting your chest,
rotting your breast
get that taken care of,
seems serious and no big deal at once
that is some Frida Kahlo surrealist shit,
i think i should paint you – with that rib, before you take care of it

i leave the room
an oversized german shepherd, a yearling – i think, is trailing me like a caboose/
my hand is now in his mouth
his teeth are so white, like veneers
there are so many teeth, like the big bad wolf or a great white shark
he is not biting me with them though
he is holding me with his mouth, trying to keep me with him
his jaw is practically unhinged, agape in a near semicircle to prove
that he is not, in fact, biting down, but there are canine dental impressions on my hand
the familiar woman says, he’s harmless
i want him to let go of me all the same, i say