I Had A Dream It Would End This Way

By | 12 August 2025

i.

Structure ; fish hook ; exorcism.
Am I floating? When I dream it feels like it –

I call Zoe on a Tuesday.
Babe, she says, bad timing. It’s a full-moon.

Listen, I reply. I saw the nightclub glow with blue-bottle
bodies jerking it to an old children’s song:
heads, shoulders, knees & toes, knees & toes.
& everyone was fevertraced with neon.
& everyone was elongated into light.


ii.

I know I imagined my life chronologically.
I know I imagined anything at all apart from this
call & response to helplessness:

queer as genetics.
depression as genetics.
am I floating?

Babe, Zoe says, you need to get out.


iii.

Threshold ; bargain ; dominion.
Am I dreaming? My jaw is shaggy, my hands sequester claws
I levitate with nocturnal dread –
A room strapped golden and dark. Eyes & ears & mouth & nose, mouth & nose.
Below, a disco ball spins.


iv.

I don’t think about it often & I feel bad
for not feeling bad. For not believing in anything at all.

I know I’ve written this poem before –
It said:
how to solve a departure.
It said:
the burnished knight climbing down the princess tower every morning
It said:
I know more about being lonely than anything else. Even when I emerge golden
from licking Z’s thighs inside the men’s bathroom stall.


v.

Am I alive? A fish hook twists. Guts ripple.
Howling at the moon. A colour theory chart.
I had a dream it would end this way. Werewolf shift.
A voice, from a very long time ago, telling me to pull.

The clubline trembles.
I don’t know, I tell Zoe, I’ve just got that dog in me.

(There was a moment, once upon a time, when I woke up –
And honestly, I had to try very hard not to kill myself.)

& I bend backwards, ankles to ceiling.

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