February Dream

By Yuncheng Tao

I have had the same dream every night for a month. Those dry, rib-like dreams, unsoaked, cling to me in the bathroom, where even the steam can't soften them. Outside my window, it feels like the air cracks open a thin, cold mouth, breathing in the chill wind of February. But none of that could ease these wrinkled, waterless dreams. I hold a magazine in my hands, my eyes drifting over the pages, and somehow, I fall asleep. And there it is, the same dream, again. Dreams are like death. They peel away the thin veils of your hidden mind as you sleep, dragging you far from the human world. And death, too, is like a grey dream, piecing together fragments of memory in the final moment of life. Tonight, my dream is barren, no rain, no softness. A cat wails atop the black stone. The jellyfish lie motionless, their light extinguished. Withered trees stumble out from the dark cave, carrying February on their backs. In these surreal illusions, the rules of consciousness collapse. Like when my sister left home, we lost love. Like when my father worked endlessly, he lost his dreams. People, cars, drifting back and forth like an absurd theater of history, stripped of real meaning. The February dream lingers outside my window, whispering like voices from the grave.

Real, and unreal, all at once.

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Yucheng Tao is a Chinese poet based in Los Angeles, currently pursuing a B.A. in Songwriting at the Musicians Institute. His work has appeared in over 30 journals internationally, including Wild Court (King’s College London), NonBinary Review, Apocalypse Confidential, The Arcanist, Red Ogre Review, Cathexis Northwest Press, SHINE: International Poetry, In Parentheses, and more. He was a semifinalist for the Winds of Asia Award. One of his poems recently became a semifinalist in a horror-themed competition hosted by Alien Buddha Press, with final results expected in October 2025. He has also been invited for interviews by four literary magazines. His debut chapbook, will be published by Alien Buddha Press in August 2025.