You ever wake up with a dream still scratching at your head like a bad itch ?
Yeah.
That kind of night.
i'm asleep, mind drifting like smoke, and here comes this young lady.
Not yelling.
Not crying.
Just hovering.
Trying to get attention like she’s waiting a long damn time.
At first, I brush her off.
I got my own ghosts to feed.
But she won’t quit.
So finally, I say, “Alright, girl. Whut up?.”
And that’s when trouble kick in.
She tells me her man’s been into some bad shit.
What kind?
I don’t know.
Drugs.
Trafficking.
Something that leaves a stink on you.
So she did what pain tells people to do.
She whooped his ass.
And not poetic-like.
Hospital-like.
Problem is, when she laid hands on him, life hit her back.
She broke too.
Mentally.
Physically.
Spiritually.
Now both of them laid up under the lights.
Same hospital.
Different rooms.
She gets out first.
Fear follow her ass home.
She’s scared to be there when he gets out.
Scared of doors opening.
Scared of footsteps.
Scared of silence.
And there you are.
In the dream.
With no cape.
No answers.
No desire to catch a man’s anger on my porch.
I don’t invite her in.
I don’t play hero.
You tell her the real shit.
Go to a shelter.
Go to the police.
Find somebody trained to hold that kind of fire.
Because sometimes the most help is knowing what you can’t handle.
Then—
Just like that—
I wake up.
Heart thumping.
Room quiet.
Dream gone but the weight still sitting on my chest.
Did it mean something?
Hell if I know.
Dreams don’t owe us clarity.
They just dump truth in your lap and walk off.
But I do know this—
There’s a song hiding in there somewhere.
A blues tune about signs.
About violence eating everybody at the table.
About knowing when to step back before the night swallows you.
Now tell me, —
you think that dream was noise… or was it begging to be turned into a song?