the thing is

since i had that dream
my dreams have all been strange
picnics in parks within amusement parks
with paddle boats and morphing lava lamp blobs
with young men sporting beatle haircuts
but situationally
maybe more like a monkees episode
(at least insofar as i can remember)

signs which would just pop up:
watch for falling objects
walking through the mountain pass of caves
to come out at a chinese theater
door attendant painted up
beestung lips and cateye liner

like it's all one big popquiz

but
it doesn't seem like it's telling me anything
and
i'm not getting any rest
because i'm spending so much time
trying to decipher where it's all coming from
it's weird

it's like sleeping in stew

and then last night
i was playing a computer virtual world game
creating characters
in more or less believable worlds
meeting other people
who had created characters
but
it was like a character head icon
branching out in a web
and then another head
with a few shoots
and there was something that i liked in one
and something in another
and somehow, overall, it was not good
but i can't remember why

i've got to be working on something
pretty intense
and i don't enjoy these dreams at all
but i really want to see
what i'm creating here

or maybe
my brain is broken
but i don't really believe that
i have to believe that it's shuffling through things
for some reason
only i'm worried
like when you take some drug
and it affects you where you can't function right
are so up close
that the big picture doesn't focus
and you're afraid that it won't come back
and you'll be one of those burned out husks
maybe that has never happened to you
maybe the use of "you" here is wrong
maybe that's only ever happened to "me"

but i woke up
with some ex-friend of mine
who wanted to get in touch with me again years ago
because, she said: she realized i had always felt like her soulmate
apparently some people think of that as a friend thing
(as opposed to a friend/lover thing)
but the lover part is important to me
and i have heard women talk about their best friends this way before
and she was my best friend for a while
but i never felt that way about her
and it made me wonder if there's something wrong with me
i'm not sure i can explain that
but i'll try:

it's like people soak in to the bottom of my surface layer
and think they've plumed the depths of my soul

maybe that makes me closed off
although
i don't feel closed off

but anyway
i don't think i'm adequately explaining

in the dream
i was playing this computer game
and i was running scenarios through my head or something
and i had some big important realization
(which, of course, inconveniently enough, i can now not remember)
but something like how i need to recombine
the character was a male
and i need to create or register or something a female character
and charlotte fills out the form for me
really fast
with characters that are like those modified ones
that one uses with a stylus
like the "F" for female looks like an upside down "L"
and i don't know why that is important
but i'm sitting naked by the window
and i'm looking at a bottle of lotion on the table
and suddenly
all i want to do is masturbate
wonder if the bottom of the bottle is too squared
for comfortable insertion
i consider an empty coke bottle
and i wonder to myself:
have i lost important muscle tone in the last two years
is it actually possible to forget how