Dream Me Back

i lay like that —
arm above my head,
one leg curled in,
drowned in the smell
of our bedsheet.
somehow,
i drifted off,
and there you were again.

i still do this thing
where dreams
change scenes
like home videos.
everything happens —
we came back
to where we wrote the letter
with the pen.

sorry.
i was mean again.
i said too much —
so you stayed gone
for so long.

but kiss me anyway,
right after
i say something stupid.
’cause life only lets us
get away with it
once — don’t hope for twice.

i used to yell
whenever you touched
the parts of me
i tried to hide.
i never said
i liked it.
but i did.
i did crave it,
thinking of when
we’d meet
in a dream.

and this time,
you really didn’t kiss me.
just looked —
that look
that unraveled me.

then it cut —
to black,
to white films,
to black again,
to the beginning.

i was bad
at making the ending scene.

then i woke up,
still waiting
for something
to come back,

as the TV
was stuck
by lightning.

(Once published on All Poetry)