Across the Country We Watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer

I’ve been having dreams where everything turns out __________

or nothing ends at all	no one not carried 
back to the world of the living	 no

hypnic jump	like I’ve missed a stairstep 
like I’m certain something has gone 
terribly wrong	    where you are

our books and stories always tell us	  not to want 
danger	     to beware	the dust of deep library corners

the same stories that want us	       to disturb 
that tell us not one of our monsters is yet dead
deader than the words	   we’d speak to bring them back

but everything I write I can’t bear 
but make its ending		__________

sometimes I can only comfort	   myself      alone in early morning 
by rocking back and forth	 like I couldn’t sleep	      as a baby
and forced my family awake

in desperation to be held
and sustained	  it’s been       __________ days
since thoughts of death	   or anyone else	       touched my skin

all I think of is
what I look like in your sleep

what I look like	      when I take 
my foundation off
how I look to my neighbors

peeling off my shirt	     standing before
my window	       from where I can just almost see __________and 

again	   I imagine	    where

nothing  	__________      is destroyed

Read more from Issue 20.2.