I Am Disappeared

I keep having dreams of pioneers and pirate ships and Bob Dylan, Of people wrapped up tight in the things that will kill them, Of being trapped in a lift plunging straight to the bottom, Of open seas and ways of life we've forgotten. I keep having dreams. Amy worked in a bar in Exeter, I went back to her house and I slept beside her. She woke up screaming in the middle of the night, terrified of her own insides. Dreams of pirate ships and Patty Hearst breaking through a life over-rehearsed. She can't remember which came first, the house, the home or the terrible thirst. She keeps having dreams. And on the worst days, when it feels like life weighs ten thousand tons, She's got her cowboy boots and car keys on the bedstand, so she can always run. She could get up, shower, and in half an hour she'd be gone. I keep having dreams of things I need to do, of waking up and of following through, But it feels like I haven't slept at all when I wake to her silence and she's facing the wall, Posters of Dylan and Hemmingway, an antique compass for a sailor's escape. She says "You just can't live this way", and I close my eyes and I never say, "I'm still having dreams". And on the worst days, when it feels like life weighs ten thousand tons, I sleep with my passport, one eye on the backdoor, so I can always run. I could get up, shower and in half an hour I'd be gone. And come morning, I am disappeared, just an imprint on the bed sheets. I'm by the roadside, with my thumb out; a car pulls up, and Bob's driving. So I climb in, we don't say a word as we pull off into the sunrise, And these rivers of tarmac are like arteries across the country. We are blood cells alive in the bloodstream of the beating heart of the country. We are electric pulses in the pathways of the sleeping soul of the country.