The Alchemy of Self

In the quiet furnace of dreams,
a man ascends — weightless, barefoot, unbecoming.
His striped pajamas, stitched from sleep and silence,
flutter in the breath of the sky.

Around him, monarchs orbit like golden thoughts,
fragments of a self once cocooned in sorrow.
They do not pull him down,
they lift — tiny wings whispering truths
the waking world forgets.

He does not look up, nor down.
He looks within.

Clouds cradle him like memory:
soft, vast, ungraspable.
And here, midair, he begins the oldest work —
turning pain into presence,
routine into revelation,
flesh into spirit.

This is not flight.
This is becoming.