Unreal

Sitting in a waiting room
Occasionally holding hands
Because blood work is scary
I will watch you leave with the nurse
And once you’re out of sight
Let out the shivers that have been building

I’ll creep out of the plastic plant, library-quiet, color-neutral, blank room
Into the street, the street which is always awake
For a cigarette
Get lost for a while in the smoke,
With thoughts of cancer cells, timelessness,
Calmness and old souls
Wondering if the smoke smell permeates my jacket
And where the molecules I exhale will diffuse to
Antarctica maybe

I’ll go back into the warmth
To fidget, to wait
When you come out, white-faced
I’ll feel toxic with my thoughts of medicine and sickness

The last time I felt this polluted was not too long ago
In a white-washed house where there were too many people

All I wanted was to grab your hand
Lead you out of the room like a child
To somewhere quieter, to spoon and whisper and eventually sleep
I’ve been growing up lately, I feel very old

I lost track of you at some point. I kept my head down for too long
And you drifted away without a thought of goodbye
Probably not thinking at all
I woke up later
Tangled in the gauze of a canopy
With a similar gauzy-white feeling in my head
In cold sheets, by myself

I had to get out of there
Walk around, ballroom dance with the fresh air
In ballet shoes, maybe on the roof
So I crept away, from that room where I didn’t realize I had been waiting,
Even in my sleep
Always waiting

Dancing away the blues, the whites, the grays
With stolen sunglasses in the silent dark
Eyes shaded from the cold, eclipsing moon
Just a blank mind
In a blank world

I wonder if you can hear the pitter patter of my feet on the roof
Or if I am dancing on air
It’s hard to say

I don’t believe in heaven
But I believe in dreaming
And sometimes I dream that my soul escapes me for brief moments
It feels like I am dancing on air
Above me and also in me
This is what heaven would feel like

I am not afraid of my death, just yours.