“Back in the day… Chi City, 2024…”
It was all a dream – more like a legion of nightmares
kicking me while I was already down in tandem, it wasn’t random,
it felt pointed, specific, these bad dreams were so good at their job they probably had a fandom.
If my life and health was a city, it would have looked like the South Bronx in the 60s & 70s
as each ever-waking night I lay trapped, with no remedies,
but as time went on they started leaving me alone, their origins still a mystery,
But I fought back, swore them all to hell, tried to throw them into the dust bin of my life’s history.
They would sometimes pop out of the ground of my memories after
and dance around in my head like the zombies from Thriller,
But they created a monster – me – worse than a violent drunk who just drank a fifth of Hennessy.
In order to survive the nastiest tricks of my own mind,
facing the most gruesome nightmares I’ve seen in my life,
I did what I do best – I went from negative to positive, creating growth out of strife,
Catharsis out of frustration, prioritizing more kinds of rest after rough battles with sleep deprivation.
For weeks I woke up yelling, was afraid to sleep, or went to bed in tears,
but when I had gotten through it all, I didn’t realize I had shed all traces of fear.
My own nightmares can’t even touch me now.
They’re cowering in a corner of my psyche somewhere, wondering how
the guy they had pinned down like Neo vs. 100 Mr. Smiths
ended up turning the tables cuz he was so tired of their shit.
They’ve created a monster, scarier than anything they ever threw at me in the middle of the night.
I lost battles to my nightmares, but I won the war. I’m fearless now, thanks to them, and I’m sleeping alright.
It’s not a fair fight the next time me and a nightmare might meet –
Next time I see a bad dream walking toward me I’m telling that motherfucker to cross the street. – RSM
Rubén Sebastián Muñiz | ∞ 