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i had a dream about Chappell Roan


full stop.


okay not about her, but one in which
she appeared.

pretty sure it was her.
i feel i should be throwing confetti in the air.
blow a kazoo


and it wasn’t a sex dream,
don’t believe me?

and there wasn’t any reactive,
MS Paint-quality nudity.
calm down –
it was actuated by a photo
i saw of her without
too much makeup on

standing alone in profile on a press go-around
with a wallpaper of watermarks like you’d see
in the background,
no wig, dyed hair luminescent
and wearing what some call a ‘normal’ top
with thong straps,

staring straight ahead like i was the skeez
peering over her property line,
standing at that precipice with my hands on its ledge

when really i’m thousands of miles away
on a screen

*

how, then
to describe my dreams?

in repetitious themes.
always searching for something the most
difficult, illogical way i can

so just like the rest of person
& animal kind.
i had the ‘A’ tattooed on my hand –
the sign for ‘Awake’, to help with lucidity –
but i still close my eyes at the bottom of a hill
looking up –
Kate Bush can run if she wants to, i’m not with her group

or driving through a backwood overhung
so i can get to something parochial and dumb,
like a locker with a combination i can’t remember
at the middle school i went to more than twenty years prior

you following?
because it’s the last day to hand in the essay
worth 80% of my grade?
just like the all-nighters i would pull in university,
and of course there’s no parking
’cause it’s Activity Day
so everyone can see me coming up the roadway
but it isn’t vice-versa with their skinwalker outlays
and the halls are empty;

all these fucking corridors look the same –
Chappell ain’t here, she would’ve just started Primary;
there’s no receptionist, no aids –
a challenging intention
devolves into simple wandering,
and so it goes again and again.

and in that photo, Chappell spun
the wheel of emoticons,
permissing what her facial expression that evening would be
for the lights and shutters & public to see
as it changes nightly from junket-to-junket,
stage-to-stage,
scene-to-scene –
and i had never really heard her music before
until a girl friend played some off her phone,
and my friend said,
“she’s wonderful, isn’t she?
she’s very comfortable with her feminine sexuality” –

most women understand what they’re trying to achieve
or have a team
but h-o-t-t-o-g-o?
it was like she opened her front door for Milani.


it’s Spring 2007,
the year after my high school graduation –
little Kayleigh was only nine, dancing in time
to the pitter-patter of the Vancouver rain,
thousands of miles away –

and in that magical world
northeast of the Pacific,
me & my neckbeards are sitting in a basement comparing
photos of hot famous chicks –
our youth was our license:
mid-twenties Anne Hathaway in a blue chemise versus
the deaf Japanese girl from “Babel” –
FIGHT!

and now introducing
our main event:
pre-“Red” Taylor without foundation –
Touchdown when those cameras stop rolling!

little green-haired Billie when she still shouldn’t smoke –
didn’t say she couldn’t –
but sure made that smokey throat sing –
tough choice, stocking boxes
in 2024;

Elle Fanning & Léa Seydoux
working their craft on “Death Stranding 2”:
so stoked to be plastered with visual cues
until those smooth, ivory cheekbones begin to blush
when they try out the photo mode they were coy on
in the contract;
give us that low-angle and
Kojima-san’s excuse can always be cultural.

*

this time

i visualized
an elevator door,
standing at the precipice, leaning on its edge,
talking to a friend –
right there i could tell i was dreaming
because i hate the mall in actuality

and they had stepped out and i was still in
and it was getting close to showtime and i didn’t
want to miss the beginning of the movie
again,
this is me yelling at them the same way i did
my Dad,
from twenty years prior, tip-toeing around the matter –
what were my excuses for not paying rent?
is that the only reason he was upset?
the disrespect?

okay, okay,
my companion says to let the elevator go,
and i look behind me and over the fence
of the door line
to see who i kept waiting,
because that makes my afterglow paralysis
extra-embarrassing


and there Kayleigh was at the front,

with a little smile that
my subconscious flourished,
doing something, going somewhere,
fully clothed,
natural hair, whatever colour my mind filled in there,
nothing to do with sex or tiddies
or me,
just the only –


but then i woke up.


and i don’t speak for person &
animal kind.

//wd 11.13.2024

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Photo by Thomas Chauke. on Pexels.com