Free verse.

I had a dream that the world was on fire. The world was on fire and burning. Red and gold and yellow, and then black. All black. It was black and I was having a hard time touching the sky, breathing the sun, seeing all I wanted to see. I was having a hard time and then I was a tree. I was a tree in the middle of a crystal lake that was full of fish who could not breath. They glared at me from underneath their watery homes. "Choking us. You're choking us," they said. They said this to me with hatred in their eyes and sadness in their hearts and I was sad. I was sad becuase I didn't know what I was doing wrong or how I could make it right. I was just a tree in the middle of this lake and I didn't know who had put me here. I didn't know that I was hurting them. But I was. They said I was. They knew I was. And somewhere deep within me, I knew I was too. But then the world was on fire again. I was safe in the middle of this lake, in the middle of this watery landscape that surrounded me. I sat there in my lake, my roots deeply embedded to the ground below, my leaves reaching for the blue, blue, blue sky above and I watched the world go on fire all around me. Red and gold and yellow, and then black. All black. It was black and I was having a difficult time reaching for the sky, breathing in the sunlight, seeing all I wanted to see. I was fading, fading, fading, swaying, swaying, swaying in the growing wind, the growing power of the oxygen as it picked up speed and swallowed me whole. I was empty, I was hollow. Just an outline of wood in the middle of this lake, and suddenly, my roots were not deep within the earth. I was flying, I was soaring, I was exploding in the sky. I was shards of wood, dozens of leaves, the cause of so many cuts, the source of countless splinters- But the fish, they were rejoicing. They were rejoicing. They were free. And then, I was me again. Still flying, still soaring, but not exploding anymore. I was just floating, high above the fiery world below. I was in the sky, floating. Still surrounded by red and gold and yellow, but this time, no black. I was free. I floated slowly, watching as the world below me was engulfed by the blackness, and I was hopeless to watch. I wished not to have to see the world, my world, being destroyed underneath me. And as soon as those thoughts passed from my mind into the sky around me, I was flung into outerspace. A brief thought passed through my mind-- "Neverland?" but no. There were no flying fairies, there was no Captain Hook. I was floating in outer space, alone, alone, alone. I was floating. I could see the world below, still burning. But no. That was not fire. That was not death. That was life. That was hope. That was the power of a million dreams lighting the planet from within. It was love. Oh, how I longed to be back there, amongst all of those who were capable of dreaming such dreams, of hoping for such beauty, of loving with such strength. And just like that, I was brought down into the night sky. Abruptly. With no warning. It was cold down here. And I was slowly, slowly, slowly being lowered. I could feel the weight of gravity bringing me down. The pressure at the base of my spine, a string pulling me lower and lower. I was grounded. And then I was seeping into the ground, and from the ground to my wall, and from my wall into my bed. And just as I began to see the colors of red and gold and yellow outside of my window. Just as I began to smell the scent of smoke from outside my door, I woke up-- gasping, worrying, sweating. It was nothing but a dream.