I have had troubled dreams,
feverish midnights,
howling visions with no reason,
the smells of apocalypse:
I dream of ruins
in a world that never was,
I dream of fire
swallowing whole cities in its flames:
as if I have lived another life,
in my dreams, where I go
wearing an alternate me,
and somewhere
my two existences
begin to occupy the same space
simultaneously — and
the person who is being created
in these invisible forges
is neither me nor anyone,
a one wholly new,
who will have memories
that were never his, of both this world
and the world out of my touch.
And so, if you see me
sometime when I seem...
not quite myself...
introduce yourself to that person,
because he will know you,
but he will not understand
that he is not
a survivor past the end of the world,
and you are not
an angel of the former world,
trying to call him back home.
lydia