[Narration] Nightmares begin slipping into daytime consciousness. A presence murmurs from beyond the edges of perception. [Invocation] Sleep is a tide, I’ve learned to ride it Tonight it drags instead of lifts If I don’t surface when it’s over Who is it that comes back adrift? [Verse I] Pillow cold with old invocations, phrases mouthed into the cloth Half-remembered sigil fragments etched in sweat along my throat I descend through layered echoes, other nights stacked underneath Every dream a rusted cellar, every door without a key [Verse II] There, a corridor of eyelids, hanging, blinking without eyes There, a sea of ticking heartbeats, none of which are beating mine When I try to shape the landscape, as I’ve done a thousand times Something else is drawing borders, stitching seams between the signs [Chorus] These are dreams that do not close Pages turning of their own I am written as a question In a script I do not own These are nights that never end Only change the shape they wear When I wake, I take the residue Of someone else’s thinking there [Verse III] Teacup shatters on the table in a room I know is false Yet I feel the porcelain splinter in my waking, tender pulse Doors I sealed in prior journeys stand ajar and breathing steam Every ward I laid as anchor floats like driftwood in the deep [Chorus II] These are dreams that do not close Eyes that open from below I’m a sentence left unfinished In a mouth I do not know These are nights that bleed their color Into every waking glance Every shadow holds an echo Of a laugh just out of chance [Verse IV] Once, I wake—or think I’ve woken—sit up in my mortal bed But the window frames a staircase climbing where the sky should sit instead Every step is labeled “Later,” every landing stamped “Too Late” And upon the highest railing hangs a mask that knows my face [Bridge] Who is steering when I’m dreaming? Who is watching when I wake? If my mind’s a guarded temple Who just learned to lift the gate? On the clock beside my bedside All the numbers read my name Every hour, every second Ticks me deeper into flame [Final Chorus] These are dreams that do not close Hands that write behind my eyes I’m an altar set for supper For a guest I can’t define These are nights that never leave me When the daylight burns them pale In the mirror of the morning Something else blinks through the veil [Outro] I trace a sigil on my forehead Just to know the skin is mine The mark fades faster than it should As if another wears my time
