By Nola Killpack

In my dreams, I fly.
No longer must I merely survive,
here I can die a thousand times.
I shed my body like a husk
and emerge a butterfly,
carried to the threshold, where
all these worlds meet.
I know things too lovely
to exist anywhere, but here
when I wake they just disintegrate.
Slumber pulls me from the depths
until I’m
burning.
Here, a million miles from my cotton sheets,
my ear releases the secrets it keeps
quietly, and they tick like a clock
spelled against the world
when the lights go out.