I Sleep So You Can Live
“I sleep so you will be alive.”
~Louise Gluck
These are the only adventures left.
The ones I surrender to.
I let you have them, because,
you deserve your capacities.
Who am I to tell you no?
I’m as trapped as anyone
in NYC during the pandemic
and you are my etiquette-less
inside voice that won’t be quelled.
Live for me, for both of us.
Though we’ll never meet,
I’m able to remember you.
You who do what I cannot.
For instance, last night you swam
inside the waves of the ocean
while I rode shotgun above,
a water-tight hull separating
us both from our natures.
Yet you go on
braving the drink.
I live too cautiously
as if afraid of drowning
while you act out your
liquid legacies in spite
of my affinity for dry land.
Why do I need to be
stripped of pretense
before you start living it up?
In hindsight, you owe me.
Then again, we use each other.
I bear the weight of your qualities
while you reap the rewards
of who I thought I was.
I marvel how you can
live so much of who I am
in a night with no need
for darkness.
And so I let myself become
that space that welcomes
your every experience
despite my better
judgement.
Peter Valentyne
January 24th, 2021
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1 comment:
Peter, this poem is deep and beautiful. Two very different people. Yet, the same. One dwells in the dream state and the other in the awakened state. Both equally real. Same voice, but different chords and notes being played by each in tandem. Conscious and Sub-Conscious. Ego and Super Ego. Freedom, adventure and unpredictability flourish in the dream state. This can be infinitely appealingly and opens the gate to escape from the present to another time and place. This periodic escape can be very healthy and safe. Similarly is the case, too, for any true artist, who moves out of the present state of affairs into another time and place when allowed through artistic expression and endeavors. However, for life to breath in the dream state, it is mandatory for the individual to sleep. Thus, a price is paid by both. One cannot thrive without the other. There is no compromising here because they need each other equally in order to ultimately form the whole. The organs that breath life into each are connected. 👏
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