Complicated Reality

I met her at a party, friends call her Morphine Sue.

She said she had a secret to keep the nights from feeling blue.

She had soft fuzzy hair in the hard club lights,

and asked me how well I planned to sleep that night.

We wandered back to her place, where she gave me the tour,

wasn't much more there than a mattress and a floor.

"Who needs more stuff when I have enough to dream?"

and she pulled out a couple pills so she could show me what she means.

She dreamt about a fireplace, she dreamt about a fire,

every time she'd start to wake, another pill to get her higher.

she dreamt about the limelight, she dreamt of outer space,

while I held her and beheld her pretty, silent, smiling face.

She dreamt us a vacation, an island getaway,

in her dream we'd hide inside, and dream the days away.

She asked me if I liked it, I said I didn't know,

her dreams sure sound amazing, but out here they didn't show.

I dared to dream about romance and what we could become,

she told me, if she's honest, dreaming sounds more fun.

So when my dreams were finished, only one thing left to do,

I left, and wished my best to the dreamer, Morphine Sue.

Author's note: This poem ranked for a competition about revisiting drug culture poems from the 1920s. It's a re-imagining of a character from a "Cocaine Lil and Morphine Sue".