If only it could end
as a bad dream ends,
with no resolution except that waking
reveals that none of it was true.
If only it could end
as a fairy tale ends, with all of them
swallowed up by something improbable
that sweeps them out to sea for good.
If only it could end
as a good movie ends, with heroism
and vanquished villains
and a sunset bright as dawn.
It won’t end that way,
of course. It’s going
awry and sideways and
no one is going to win.
It won’t end that way
because someone is making
a different movie, telling
a different fable, scaring us from sleep.
It won’t end that way
because we can’t imagine those stories
are ours, because we like to think
we’re awake; because they own the night
it won’t end the way we want.
Not in light. Not in sunset
or dawn. Not unless
we steal the night from them, and soon.