Last night I dreamed that I was

at work. At work today I dreamed

that I could dream. I could taste it.

It was better than clocking out.

I like that time stretches & warps in dreams

-- even the worst ones. It’s like stealing

time from god, taking yourself back

from your body all night.

The site of all work is the body. The site of all

this being thieved from myself again

& again, this place I am made a

passenger. I used to think

disassociating was indescribable.

But then I realized that it’s just work.

Brendan Joyce is a busboy in Cleveland, Ohio. He is the author of Character Limit (2019), a collection of poetry originally published as a twitter thread. He can be found on Twitter at @nicetryofficer.