Just moments ago,
we were standing together,
discussing how you found The Beatles so inspiring.
You, a random neighbor
from some distant place and time.
I lived across the street
from I'm unclear where,
but now we're in my unfamiliar house
and it's yours,
and why am I standing here naked?
Because someone inadvertently added my clothes to the laundry,
but how did they get them?
Why wasn't I wearing them?

I open my eyes in the darkness,
and with so few details yet visible
in my pre-dawn bedroom,
it feels no more real
than the still-fading dream.
It's difficult,
tricky
to drag myself away from the imaginary loneliness
with its physical, grinding heartache
when the only real place I have to stand
is also all
alone.

I close my eyes again
and hope to find myself
fallen into a rerun
of yesterday's dream,
escaping European cities and intermingled jungles
with the princess.
That would be something,
at least.
Actually,
it would be nothing,
but still better than nothing,
and I would be happy with that,
though not actually happy,
but better than nothing.

Instead,
there's Katie,
a sweet girlfriend from three eons ago,
now a nurse,
at least in the dream,
and I realize what's going on
when she begins telling me a story
I know I've heard before from someone else.
"What would you do
if you knew
you were only a dream?" I ask her.
Her face and head
entirely vanish,
leaving only
a light-blue Oxford
to wrap its arms around me
for 2.5 seconds
before the dream can no longer
hold itself together
and I find myself again alone
in the dark,
but with the grinding heartache
somewhat soothed.

So that's something.
It's better than nothing.