In the dream, I lift you
above your broken heart,
the one that keeps you
just below sea level
the walking depression that
lets you walk among the living,
a quiet ghost wearing your clothes
these days
I watch as you hit the light just so
and become a Russian doll of grief
watch as it pulls out of you
shell by shell
until you are an assembly line
of all your former selves
and you can no longer open up
but in the dream we are
weightless
unhurried versions of ourselves,
and I hold you like
we have long since healed
our every open wound
our many mouths of worry
our raw & finite anger
that we deserve so much better
than what our open palms were given.
