A Dream

Open up your secret
Tell me how I might refract
For I am one and one life in one time's
A mirror that I've been dying to crack

And let the world be more
Though I know in each act I open up a door
I wonder still at the labyrinths before
That now lie unwandered and ignored

I could swear that I've lived as long as you
That I can imitate anything you do
But your hands are hundreds, I've just two
Spun from the clock's relentless core

I could move like blown air
Everywhere, omniscient and wild
I would be your brother, lover, father, and child

I'd find a way to be foolish and be wise
And trace all of the seams in time's disguise
And at the end of the day, I could blink my eyes
To reload another self once more

Now I'm hearing your footsteps in the halls
While your singing is arching over walls
Tell me, can it be really you at all
In skies and on the ocean floor?

Last night I had a dream that you adored me
Last night I had a dream that I shone bright
The more I am at once to everybody
The more I'll be like you, the more I can rewrite

Here outside it's raining, it's wailing
I'm soaked to the blood
Somehow I know that you did this
It's your kiss on my head, your dry ground under the flood

And if I learn to swim
Then you're still the sea that I'm writhing in
Defining all that I am and that I've ever been
And all whom I will never be

Is there a way I might drink of you, not drown?
Is there a way I might find the pipeline out
Or diffuse my body into sound
Becoming waves, becoming free?

Last night I had a dream that you adored me
Last night I had a dream that I shone bright
The more I am at once to everybody
The more I'll be like you, the more I can rewrite

I dreamt I was the air, that I was so strong
I dreamt I was a promise I could keep
I dreamt I was a film, I was a novel
A prayer for the impossible, a dire and desperate leap

I dreamt about a car of grease and metal
I dreamt I was the moment of its crash
I dreamt I was a fire, a shrieking kettle
A cradle and a coffin and a wolf among the sheep

I dreamt I was a priest without forgiveness
I dreamt I was a thief who could see God
I turned away my eyes to keep them human
And waking up I find that they've been stolen in my sleep

I dreamt that I had never loved another
I dreamt her heart was safe behind her ribs
That I could stop this war, that I could save her
That I was just a dream returning to the deep