the dearest dreamers

do you sleep well, my dearest reader? do you rest your weary head and dream?

perhaps you take magnesium supplements to get you there, perhaps you keep your step count up each day to ensure exhaustion, perhaps you read in the hour before lights out. maybe you're an insomniac- maybe you sneak onto the world wide web in the early hours of the morning and find a quiet corner to sulk in before the light filters through and you can finally rest. maybe you toss and turn in your IKEA bedspreads and comforters and blankets. as a child, you might've been allotted a certain "bed time". you might've stayed up past it on a gaming device or with a book or even small toys. you might've been a sound sleeper, you might've needed the warmth of mother to sing you off. 

"I slept well

except for two uncanny dreams

that came before the change of weather

when I rose and opened all

the shutters to let warm wind feather

with wet plumage through my rooms"

i have no doubt, my dear readers, that you all have varying schedules of sleep. and i have no doubt that sometimes you are kept up. 

what i wonder on, though, is those of you haunted by the n i g h t m a r e s

dear reader, has it been harder for you of late, to drift to a dreamless state? to escape the troubling feelings that you thought you'd gotten rid of? are they back? are you once again left tired and weary of the night?

"Behind me 

then I heard a voice
warning me to hold her hand
and kiss her on the mouth for she
loved me and a brave embrace
would avoid all penalty."

and when, in a hushed and stunted silence, you feverishly pry your eyelids apart and in sheepish stance recollect your thoughts and confirm to yourself that reality actually begins outside of your head, is it instead contradicted? do you wrestle to stay awake? to stay here, in this room, with these walls and the bars of your bed frame to accompany you? do you spend the days suspect; do you wonder if, when the darkness falls again around this irreverent town, you will once more face these belligerent evils? 

dearest reader. 

dearest

r e a d e r ?

do you worry?? of who you'll find? of who will

meet 

you

there

when you sleep, dearest. when you dream. are your nightmares filled with the close ones. like they once were.

sincerely, the caravan girl.