To pretend

My mind is a glass 

Clearheaded I dream

Phantom visions my eyes

Cannot see;

In the cradle I spun

Shiny things 

Of silver and gauze

Gossamer threads I used

To hide myself while crying

First needs into faint, unanswering air.

Reality is a blacksmith 

Always swinging His hammer

Hot, parched, burning

With calloused fingers;

Slaving away at the furnace

While puffs of smoke

Like some soot-stained clock

Mark the taking and turning

Of memories and moments

Into coal.

Cruel Taskmaster,

Why should I greet You?

My glass mind

Sparkles and glows

From the dancing of Your embers

So bright

I shield myself

Shut my eyes

The gossamer threads

Now dangle in the dark

And grow.

They grow

They wrap around me

And dangling in the dark

They grow some more

Like a gown

For sleeping, for dreaming

And they form an image

A bird

To protect me

While I sleep and dream.

Don't dreams protect us?

Like a cotton veil

We'll never wake from them;

I don't want to wake up

So I lie here

In this bed

This life,

My face pressed against 

A pillow, while it tumbles on

Through hours and days and nights

And I watch the bird

Mesmerizing in its flight

The laws of nature defied

By the pushing, slicing motion

Of its wings

So unreal

Watching it, I grow older

Eyes shut

Asleep. 

Yet, eyes shut

I know

That harsh hammer,

Reality, must fall

Must plummet a path

Upon the anvil and crash,

Fretfully along its course,

Strike the bird still freshly launched

Still shaking with its departure

My perch of dreams

Stricken; it, too, now falling

Shedding feathers

Cascades of them

And they fall, too

Down, down they fall

So that the feathers and the falling

Intermingle;

Form silence

And blacken.

Is it dead?

I know it can't be.

Its blood paints a new coat

Bright red over the cold metal

Of the anvil;

Don't open my eyes - 

Don't make me look! 

I want to pretend

To lie here

And so lying here

Stay safe, unknowing

And free.

But my gossamer gown

Is ripped, I can feel it

My fingers poke at flesh

Through open holes

Within the fabric;

Reality roars at me

Threatens me

My heart flutters

But I'm not scared

Reality is a ghost

After all,

Like that bird

Lying there as I used to

Safe, unknowing,

And what I thought was free

Though I love it

I can't keep it here

I am not a cage

I am a key:

I open my eyes. 

Reviews

[jacob erin-cilberto]

wow, this is like emily dickinson meets sylvia plath and they collaborate.
both so infatuated with death for different reasons.
i especially like the blacksmith analogy...that works so well here.
wonderful poem....got a little lengthy...but kept regaining momentum.
j.

[Heather]

Thank you! I've been experimenting with longer poems lately so glad to hear my message wasn't lost in it