before sleep (idea)

My mother tells me to take pills
and stop
looking in the mirror.

I tell her to send money
and stop
looking at other people's cats.

Eyes open and body stiff,
I wonder,
tonight will it be dreams of alleys steaming
like Gotham City,
legs pumping as he gets closer,
or stale yellow classrooms reeking of bored breath
where I am tied to words like
prosody.

Will it be dreams of summer on the bare ground,
earth split open and shaved bleeding
where there are no trees,
burnt holes of black land rising
as I look ahead to a landscape chopped
clean of life;
will it come back to me,
sucking me dry like soil
as I sleep.

Pre-dawn beds make me think of
ice cubes
I slide against them numbing but pain deep
inside and my sheets are
thin flaky stillness;

I am dry like frost.