Sometimes dreaming works
When the tyranny of reality
Sticks pieces of wood
In the spokes of your wheels
When concrete bruises your cheekbones
As you fall down
Down for the nineteenth time
Dust and pain cloud your vision
Highlighting the immediacy of tomorrow’s plans
For which your preparations are forever inadequate
The black scarf draped around your neck
Tightens of its own accord
Harder and harder it squeezes
And you gasp for air
You need air
Just enough to fuel tonight’s dreams
Because in that world
The ground doesn’t nip at your heels
Since you are flying up up
Away from your wallet
That’s as drained as your heart
In this world
You are brimming
Overflowing with hope and infinite potential
In this world the handcuffs can’t find you
Can’t stifle you like a hot room closing in in
Until you have nowhere left to stand
There is no black anaconda here lurking
Trying to crush your bones
Until the very last drop of life
Struggles out of you and splatters
Onto the battleground
In this world your wings are
Bigger than your fears
Broader than your uncertainties
Powerfully they beat against gravity
Carrying you farther and farther up
Until you are out of reach
Towards endless possibility and eternal joy
Flapping and flapping and flapping
Up up up and away
Until you snap awake and once again
Your hands grow clammy with sweat
The now faint traces of hope
Drowned out by the roars of real life
You are running out of breath once again
But you are praying
That you will have just enough remaining
To return you to your own secret world at night
Where the notes of hope aren’t faint
But rather a beautiful, deafening orchestra