When I wake inside this lucid dream

When I wake inside this lucid dream
of cigarettes and Lipton tea
and music screaming twice as loud
as the bubblegum in Mr.’s mouth,
I’m sometimes too afraid to walk
outside the comfort of my thoughts
and instead I sit outside my mind
and hope a better world derives

from empty bottles on the street
and crinkled stretch-wrap stuck to feet
and speeding trains to distant lands
a thousand miles from where I am
and thankful people along the way
living lives without much thanks
or thoughts or cares or dreams or fears
to call their very own and own.

Cause crossing tracks with stigmas stacked
they’ve often missed the things they’ve made
and simple birds with sweeter words
from times we had before we changed.

Those moments where we found ourselves
Asleep, awake in lucid dreams

and found ourselves within our heads,
before we fell asleep to wake…

Andrew Venegas
San Jose
SJSU
poetry