Delusional Dreams

By Sylvia Sanchez Garza

Today is a new daily record. Again, we peaked!
Still, does death even care or take pause?
Like a prisoner released from a cell,
he walks in a disturbing, dark daze
hoping that somehow things won’t turn. Oh…
How many more added onto the lethal list to bury?

Please name don’t be with the souls we will bury
for we weren’t aware that you had peeked.
You had no idea we would be in this monumental mess. You don’t owe
your total being. Yes, if only there had been a sooner pause,
maybe we wouldn’t be waiting days and days
to stir up a bargain or a deal to sell.

Are any of you willing to sell
your lovely life as blissful as a berry?
Mere bones in a box of whys, in a disillusioned daze─
Still, life mourns as we peak.
Numbers, data, science, they don’t pause.
The coaster keeps going, no end, and, oh…

Hospitals become rivers, overflowing. Oh,
businesses may suffer, can’t open or sell.
And strangers, with bare faces blaring and barking, raising their paws.
Isn’t safety better? Not cremate or bury?
Who cares if the economy hasn’t yet peaked
or why the delusional dream is like a devilish daze?

Creation walks in mourning, unaware of the darkest days.
Hoping for the promised miracle cure─ to us, they owe.
Looking into pandora’s box, the world peeks
after being locked away for months in a comfy cell.
Please don’t tell us today we have to bury
our dreams and hold on as we all pause

for breath after breath. Respectfully reflecting our reality, time pauses
as we whisper through the window of life and deflect our daze.
At the dreams cemetery, dripping in blood, we won’t bury
our souls. We will rise onward as optimistic outliers, oh
with every power in our being, in every cell─
Longing for Love and Peace… our curiosity piques.

Oh, trees and flowers and birds take pause.
The sky is a misty daze in your eyes, bones, and cells.
Try to bury the truth? The sun will cry as we peek.

Sylvia Sánchez Garza holds a B.A. in English, an M.A. in School Administration, and a Ph.D. in Leadership Studies. Her novel, Cascarones, about the cultures and traditions of growing up in south Texas, has won several awards. Her short story will be featured in an anthology by Philomel Books in 2021. At the start of the pandemic, she spent her extra time writing poetry as an outlet. Her work has now been published by Unique Poetry and Poetry and Covid.