Self-Made Visions (A Poem)

By Joyce Jacobo

Do you ever tell yourself stories at night?

There            curled within the bedcovers

       safe behind the darkness of closed eyes

                    …do you imagine scenes to build a bridge

                            between the waking world

                                                      and dreamland?

Simple tales            perhaps

      of remembered places from childhood

                  that you might visualize yourself in again

                                           while undisturbed

      or maybe even stories you wish to commit to paper

                                    (someday)

                       allowed to frolic on an intangible canvas

                                       deep in your imagination

                                                  until they bloom

                                                            at an opportune time

When my nerves rattle

          like old windowpanes on a wild      windy evening

                  but the clock’s hour            and the rest of my body

                           beg for respite—

                                              it is nice to know we can create a theater of sorts

                                                           gentle

                                                           quiet

                                                     to retreat for a while from the world

                                                          rest

                                                  and await a new day

                         …or maybe I am just peculiar

                                                                        that way

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