Lucid Purgatory.

              wake up. wake up. wake up.

a recurring dream

where the setting changes,

but the story never does.

I find love,

then lose it before the sun sets.

my cat dies

my lover vanishes

my father looks at me

as if I were a wound

he never meant to keep.

every time I wake,

my pillow soaked,

like I’ve been screaming

underwater,

drowning In an endless ocean. 

The dream always ends the same:

with me hurting,

crawling back to the world.

wake up. wake up. wake up.

my hands dig into the darkness 

as I fight against my own skin,

head kissing the earth. 

Sometimes it works.

sometimes it doesn't.

I slept less

wore the streets thin.

but the dreams always found me.

In this dream,

I had finally made it out.

bought the life I dreamed of

in the fever of my childhood.

a life far from this neighbourhood 

and all the losses 

disguised as home.

But the plane I boarded

didn’t plan on touching ground again.

I took one last dance

down the aisle—

spinning, spinning,

as panic bloomed around me

and the screams

of the other passengers

became a funeral choir.

wake up. wake up. wake up.

I struck my own face

and tightened my eyes shut,

trying to spark my way back to life.

But this time,

morning never came.

I opened my eyes 

and took in the chaos,

headfirst into this perdition.

It was always meant to end like this .

I never made it out of the dream. 

Inspired by Maria.