They say if you hit bottom
You’ll die
(If you’re dreaming that is; reality’s result is self-evident)
And in all the stories I hear
The dreamer wakes and “lives to tell about it”
Now, I don’t know anyone who’s “hit and lived to tell about it”
So I’m not sure if it’s true, but it makes a great wives’ tale
Of course, the obit would read “Died peacefully in his sleep”—
Although there was nothing peaceful about it—
But could you imagine the coroner’s report
Cause of Death: Hitting bottom while dreaming.
Sounds like a National Enquirer epilogue to a Charlie Brown life
But I don’t face those romantic, heart-rush plummets of the night
My dreams are far more realistic
I don’t envision flesh-flattening stops before I wake
No, I navigate my dinghy through mists
Waves beating me
Wind biting my bones
Clothes clotting like ice
My heart slows
As the white-maned waves begin to kick and spin
(It’s a five-ticket carnival ride for free)
Finally throwing me into the watery void
Heart continues to slow
Will stiffens
Fears suffocate
I slip downward
And then I wake, gasping for hope
No, I don’t face that free-dropping plunge—
Burst of adrenaline through my veins—
Towards that soul-stealing stop
My fear freezes the brain
Ices the soul
And I wonder if my dream could be as fatal as that endless drop
But there is no one who has “gone down and lived to tell about it”
So, my solitary gasps and frantic flailings continue
Unwitnessed
But, if some day
(In the distant future, I hope)
You happen upon my obit and read “Died peacefully in his sleep”
Assume the cause of death to be
Far removed from that peaceful embarkment Tennyson wrote of
(No crossing the bar for me)
Think rather of a spiteful gale
tyrant waves
a panicked sinking
Consider me drowned at sea