Collinear Catacumbas

How come you get
to exist in two
realms–my mind
and the world–

but I only
get to see
you in one?
when I try to sleep,

you’re there,
in the deepest corners
of my mind
reminding me awake,

reminding me
that you aren’t anywhere
near me except
in the darkest places,

when my eyes
are shut
like rolling rocks
in front of my corneas.

I know healing
is not linear
but goddamn
is it always

so seemingly
close to fatal?
like Lazarus,
rising from the dead.

I wonder if
Lazarus
dreamt
of someone

he could no
longer have;
if he had trouble
sleeping after he

rose because of
what he saw
when he was
in another realm?

Did he
ever sleep
well,
again?

Did the ghosts
keep him
company
in his crypt

after he rose
and awoke
to realize
sleep would never be the same?

Did he take
the ghosts
home and say
“Welcome.”?

Am I secretly
feeling the
generational
trauma

of people who are believed
to have come
back from
the worst? Am I

simply
coming
back from
the worst?

Am I still
in the tomb?
Surely we
have risen

by now. Surely
our alarm has
gone off
and another day

has arrived,
Surely it is time to
awake
–

prepared
or not
it is here that
we rise.

I know healing
isn’t linear
but goddamn
does it always

push you into the
tomb you
were originally
avoiding, because

you didn’t
want to
have to rise
once more?

Bringing you in and out of light
time and time again,
front and center, making
a rise out of

your old self.
What if it’s not
you that haunts me,
but me, simply

fooling myself
into thinking
we are not all
in a cave

of shadows.
That we are not
all haunted by
being risen

at one time or
another. Even
you, even Lazarus,
even me.

We all lie
in this cave
together,
healing;

collinear
co-eds
in a cave
of shadows.