Origami Dreams

Tell me about the dream,
the dream you fold up like origami paper cranes
and store in the soft space behind your kneecaps,
tell me what it smells like,
I imagine it's like strawberry wine and smoke,
a little rough around the edges,
the taste of a backstage parlour in a stripper's joint,
where the women pull purple wigs over their hair
and dance like wild flames,
but I want to hear what it sounds like,
rain on a city window,
two unlikely things.
Tell me what you hide beneath your kneecaps,
what you tuck away in those crossed elbows,
are you dreaming?
let me run my hand over your visions
like a child galloping through stalks and straw,
her fingers strumming the untrimmed weeds
as she pushes past with the weight and force of water,
and tell me what it means.
Because we all do what we can to make it,
and we forget how dreams can taste
like morning tea and cream.

-anna sluder 

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