Dream Within a Dream

I've heard someone once say, "death is but a dream." So, I thought, what if death was a dream that you were trapped in? What if death was a perpetual coma that you never wake up from, but you know what's going on around you? What if we made our own heaven and hell? What if our heaven and hell was but a dream? 

With those questions in mind, I pondered what my hell would be. I knew it wouldn't be as simple as being happy or not. I knew my heaven would be my hell. I knew that somehow I'd be self-aware. I'd know what was going on and why but be powerless to do anything about it. I knew that my hell, my dream would be embedded within a dream. And so I wrote these two poems that are one.

Dream

She places a kiss on my cheek.

We are in bliss we do not speak.

We hold each other in the sand.

Starstruck lovers, wife and man.

She can't stay here with me, 

the sun fades and so does she.

It's like holding tiny grains of sand,

she's slowly slipping through my hand.

I try to hold on by all means

though I know she's gone and this only a dream...

...Within a Dream

I stand at the shoreline and begin to weep.

I pray for the time I awake from sleep.

I wander alone the shore watching the growing waves

wondering no more. This is my grave.

So, down I lay heavily sobbing for me.

Every moment is but a dream.

Although I try to make

a movement I'll never wake.

Memories I dread as I lay alone.

I am dead and she has moved on.