I write this in the witching hour— woken from sleep with a wheezing chest.

I touched the frosted edges of death in my dream. My heart giving out in a hallway as those around me scrambled to find help.

I limped through a store to find Cris and a man named Lawrence who I had fought in the ring. The decision went his way— which he despised— because I had given up because of my heart.

He begrudgingly joined me as I toddled towards the exit.

Cris followed close by— grabbing snacks for me as I felt the energy begin to fade.

I finished the end of Blacktongue Thief in the night’s darkness as I calmed myself in reality.

The shimmer between worlds felt particularly thin.

I had flown in a small plane to a lakeside land with Alec. He had gotten a huge job on a faraway set and I had joined in a smaller role.

We stood at the edge of a pond and woke the alligators within. We ran— but Alec became Stefan.

And Stefan became Donna as I knelt in the hallway— before reaching the store and the interlude of a stand up fight with Lawrence in a ring.

Time and identities swirled together like soap bubble colors.

I’m now weak lidded and falling out of the stream of consciousness and poetry.

I walked along the grass picked edge of a bluff overlooking a golf course. A wide, empty street bearing memories of childhood lay to my right.

Not yet thirty and sitting at tables with married peers and open discussion of children.

Why does that feel pushed far to the back— like dirty socks in a cramped closet. Never dealt with— always gifted to a future version to fret with.