regarding the inhalation of failing dreams

dreams in our town weren’t like most as they didn’t accompany sleep and they birthed and died with no illusion of realization often times coming and going without notice or care

existing merely as a mechanism to instill the sense of inevitable failure that filled the organs of others who never left

or who left but never really left who noticed the remnants of our town in neglected toilet bowls

they often manifested in the flaccid, helpless motion of a man dying from dementia as he scratched the flesh from the same ticket he always scratched

some said they weren’t really dreams at all some said we were never really awake I wasn’t sure about the definition of dream

but I watched the man scratch until his fingers bled and inhaled the excess hoping I’d feel something or remember something or forget it all

some days I wondered if he’d ever stop prying at the unhealing scab or if we’d ever find out if we won or lost

some days the itch was soothing enough