A nightmare woke me.
We were under a beautiful cherry blossom tree.
You said, “I chose to be with you and I knew what it meant.  You’re enough.”

It was lovely.  You did say something like that once,
so it was admittedly more memory than dream at first.
(We laid on the bed that was once ours, though.)

Then, I noticed black foam had fallen on my arm.
You started sputtering and coughing bits of it up.
I leapt up and tried to help you (I’m CPR certified, you know).

But you took off running away from me
(you really are quite fast),
hiding your face, gasping and wheezing.

Were they really such hideous words?
Do you breathe better now?
I woke up hoping you were okay, like a damn fool.