Dreams

Dreams are strange. Dreams are messages from inside. Dreams are healing. Last night I had a unsettling dream that a college age girl with autism came to my home and asked me to take care of her. I really wanted to care for her but in the end I had to ask her to go back home to her own mother. This morning I woke up and wrote the following poem:

The Stranger

I dreamed
a stranger lived here.
She broke in two
and glued her ear to the floor.

I dreamed
a stranger lived here
pale as white sky.
I had to hand her back
to the authorities
the ones she came from
who peel skin off my back
with sharp eyes.

Today
I cannot
take care of myself
let alone an angel
sent from god.

The judge bangs her gavel
Her eyes are kind.
She understands.
I think about killing her holiness
But I don't know if I could
live with final Good Byes.

I want to be that stranger-
let me shatter
and rearrange my parts
in unexpected ways.
I want to be teeth, hair,
blood and bone-
take my last breath
on doorways and windows
and the refrigerator door.

The stranger could care
less who sees her.
She knows that pieces
glued to the forgotten
will eventually die
and new holes
will allow her true light
to shine.