Now That It Has Stopped Mattering I Have Begun To Care

I command my mind
to dream me into a country
where I can love
and be loved
less casually than people
typically do in America,
land of the quick in and out;

a place of no backstories needed,
a place where I could walk barefoot
in good soil or even mud and anyone
who finds the tracks will know
who has passed by.

In daylight my reputation’s
like a story tied to my heels,
trailing in the dirt behind me
to change my actual tracks
to indistinct traces, leaves
all passers-by asking 
if I’ve been here or not. 

You know I have a tale for them 
if it comes up, a tale for everything 
that might come up.

If someone could love me
as I want to be loved,
I wouldn’t need all these fables…
now that it has 
stopped mattering, though,
strangely I’ve begun to care
about the difference between
dreaming and not dreaming, 
or about my stories 
versus my truths;

I command myself to weld them
together, now that all has stopped;
to give me a dream and a life beyond 
the American one, the quick in and out,
the get it and be on your way — after all,

there’s nowhere to go.