Two Poems by Susan Koefod

A Selection of Daily Affirmations for Recovering Dreamers

 
From the forthcoming book, “Bromides for People Who Dream Too Much” by Dr. Sheba Chichipate and Anonymous Dreamer
 
February 2 
Reality is the cigarette you slip the prison guard, payment in full for flights of fancy, phantasmagoria, and at last, restful madness. 
 
March 22 
Reality is green and wet and chewy, like it is every day. 
 
April 3 
Reality makes your brain retreat to a corner of your skull and curl up, fetal, flaccid, and whimpering. 
 
August 18 
Reality melts in your mouth and also in your hands, contrary to the marketing message. 
 
September 21 
Reality dangles its macramé table cloth too near the floor. 
 
October 5 
Reality falls beautifully in kaleidoscopic leaves you sometimes want to dodge and sometimes want to bury yourself in. 
 
November 14 
Reality pours milk while searching for lost children last seen with their non-custodial parents. 
 
November 15 
Reality is the Doppler effect of the final whistle of the last train out. 
 
December 31 
Reality is pollen. Scales. Dominoes. Glaciers. Lightning. Herky-jerky universe, winding down, heat, death, sleep. Can't dream without you, Andromeda. So long. Good night moon. Hush.
 

About the Authors
Sheba Chichipate recommends the recovery program outlined in her first book, Why Can't I Stop Dreaming?  Dr. Chichipate believes that all can learn to enjoy reality and limit dangerous side effects including but not limited to boredom, apathy, malaise, and hopelessness. Dr. Chichipate holds a reality disorders prevention Ph.D. and a master’s degree in Podiatry with an emphasis in massage therapy.
 
Until he came to his senses, everyman's nobody, Anonymous Dreamer, spent years on the run from reality. He is currently homeless and living off day-old Krispy Kremes.

               

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Things They Haven’t Gotten To

The things they haven't gotten to over the years
pile up unwashed, the laundry of dreams.

The children they didn't have,
the blond Abigails and the dark,
unscrupulous Henrys
and their pets –
the Abigails’ hamsters and Henrys’ ant farms,
all the goldfish they didn't find
bloated, floating wrong side up in the fishbowl,
all the dead creatures they didn't have to
flush down the toilet
or bury in the backyard
all the tears they didn't have to wipe,
the promises they didn’t have to keep –
to get more hamsters, ants, or goldfish –
all the explanations they didn't have to make as to
why the Abigails couldn't have any more candy,
why the Henrys must practice their trumpets –
and how many times
they didn't have to remind the Abigails
and the Henrys to clean their rooms and shut off their lights,
because they never got to having
the Henrys and the Abigails and all their expiring pets.

All those thank-you notes they never had to write,
the gifts they didn't have to pretend they loved,
that god-awful dish they never hurriedly displayed
when his mother announced she was stopping by,
those boorish neighbors and their unruly children,
the brawling, hyperactive classmates
of the Henrys and the Abigails,
think of how often they did not
have to turn
down their invitations. 

Ste Exupery’s unwritten follow-up to
 The Little Prince might
have told such a story –
of things not gotten to –
and summed it up the phrase
“Regrets are better than irritation,”
meaning that she never flew into a rage about
the crumbs he left in the butter,
and he never got to tell her
how he hated the sound
of her cracking knuckles.

Susan Koefod’s poems have appeared or are forthcoming in anthologies and literary magazines such as Midway Journal, Minnetonka Review, Snakeskin, The Talking Stick, Avocet, and Tattoo Highway.  A travel essay, “Breakfast in Helsinki,” appears online at literarybohemian.com, and received a special mention by The Travelers Notebook (travelersnotebook.com) when it selected Literary Bohemian as one of the top 10 online literary magazines that publishes great travel writing.