i’m given to understand freud said
we are all of us imprisoned by our dreams.
but i’m shut right now in a small room with no windows
(artificial light, overhead and flickering)
and have no way to verify whatever freud may
or may not have said, regarding dreams and prisons.
last night i was imprisoned with cream cheese cupcakes.
i’d never had them before and they were delicious.
i peeled their papers back, pressed my fingertips down onto
the crumbs that fell from them onto the table also imprisoned with me,
and licked my fingertips. the cream cheese was the color of butter.
the cupcakes were cupcake yellow.
some nights i find myself imprisoned with my best friend,
though he has been dead many years. last night he was still dead,
and i was trying to make sense of the mess he left behind.
he had not turned his calculators off, nor left any instructions.
this was before (prior to) the cream cheese cupcakes.
i complained to shadowy dream people imprisoned with me
about my best friend’s machines. the shadowy dream people later
shared with me the cream cheese cupcakes.
i like the sound of the phrase, cream cheese cupcakes,
though i didn’t particularly care to share any of them, and i’m not—
never mind. some nights i share my prison with a woman i had hoped
both to love forever and to have stopped loving some years back.
looks like forever is the winner, so far.
i’m imprisoned with forever, which gives me the entire universe
as my incarcerated companion. the man who has it all,
including the dream of a beautiful cellmate,
and a telephone in this small room with no windows
(overhead light, artificial and flickering). it may ring, this phone.
(Published in J Journal, Vol. 2, No. 2, Fall 2009; copyright 2009, 2023 by Tetman Callis.)