Blurred

I close my eyes

and something opens.

Not rest

just a door i swore i locked,

swinging wide open again.

It starts quiet,

like a whisper i almost ignore,

but it grows

familiar in the worst way,

like it’s been waiting

for me to come back.

Dreams don’t feel like dreams.

They feel like memory

refusing to stay buried.

And somewhere in the middle of it,

the line breaks

sleep and waking

bleed into each other

until I can’t tell

which one I’m trapped in.

I wake up

but nothing really changes.

The ceiling is mine,

the walls are mine,

but the feeling isn’t

it’s the same weight,

the same air,

the same hands,

the same wrongness

pressing down on my chest.

It follows me out of sleep,

clings to my skin,

sits behind my eyes

like it never left.

Morning doesn’t fix it.

Light doesn’t touch it.

Time doesn’t move it.

It just lingers

half dream, half memory,

all of it real enough

to make my body believe

I’m still there.

And maybe that’s the worst part

not the dream itself,

but how it doesn’t end

when I wake up.