Easy Dreaming

The pull that I feel is

inevitable, magnetic. 

It guides me toward new life.

It is an escape from my present reality.

It is a perpetual cycle of life and death, 

birth and rebirth.

 

I submit to it.

 

And thus, I am reborn; again and again and again. 

 

I believe we call them dreams:

prophetic premonitions that shift our perspectives,

little miracles that change us overnight,

a source of unlimited new beginnings.

 

Every night, I am spirited away to a different world. 

Some are good. 

Some are bad.

Whatever the case, I adopt the identity of a different person. 

I am me, but 

I am not me. 

Perhaps I have manifested an alternate version of myself—one that exists in a faraway realm. Such is the duality of the land of dreams.

 

I enjoy my time here 

because there is no limit to the amount of times I can press the reset button. 

All I need to do is wake up.

I don’t have to worry about making mistakes.

It’s a comfortable routine: reset, restart and then replay.

It is a coping mechanism

because nothing seems to go right in the real world.

 

Police brutality is excused 

and people are suffering on hospital beds.

Youths are being separated 

from their loved ones, their futures

at the borders.

Many are dying

and many more have died.

 

Yet politicians turn a blind eye and 

the rich don’t care and 

the world is on fucking fire and 

I am worthless

because I am powerless. 

 

Completely powerless, 

worth nothing more than the numerical values found on my report card.

Pitiful.

 

For a long time, I did not

and could not

do anything. 

I relied on the land of dreams to soothe me

and sing me a lullaby,

sing me to sleep.

I wanted, needed to calm these swirling thoughts

before they became irrepressible.

 

Yet I became uneasy 

at the thought of my own complacency.

Was I simply going to accept that things were meant to fall apart?

Was I really going to trick myself

into believing that nothing could be done?

 

No. 

I have no good reason to 

because I need not rely on dreams for new beginnings. 

 

Reality is no fairytale

—it is no dream 

but it is worth fighting for.

It will always be worth fighting for. 

 

And so I learn.

I learn to create opportunities for myself

and see every morning as a fresh start

because I have always had it in me.

I fight on. 

I change the little things. 

The way I 

tie my hair, 

greet my family,

talk to friends.

The way I

live,

laugh, and

love.

 

It wasn’t easy. 

It was as difficult as difficult can be. 

But 

I have gained so much from the journey

and I have so much more left to gain 

and by some Godly miracle, 

these little changes have snowballed 

into big changes;

major changes.