Night Journeys

All night long I follow scripts written by some hand
perhaps belonging to a self that consciousness has banned.

Fresh from dreams, I feel released from tasks committed to,
and then remember other jobs that I’m obliged to do.

Who knows if dreams are showing us those things we could have done—
those things we have forgotten with the dawning of the sun.

If only I remembered that world that fades away,
perhaps I’d face a very different sort of day.

Instead, I slip into the role my life has led me to,
like forcing naked feet into a more confining shoe.

And I wonder if the dreams I dream in dreams might reveal more
of potential lives where I live closer to my core.

Perhaps these stories I concoct, labeling them as lore,
are simply other lives I live on this lower floor

I descend to in my dreams, where I go to ponder
all those other me’s whose gifts I might have chosen to squander.

Could it be in death that I am freed to find a goal
in the bargain basement of the building of my soul—

to find another path where I may once more start a quest
towards a self just one step closer to my very best?

This is a rewrite of a poem written 3.5 years ago. The prompt today is wonder.