Awake Poem by Milton Johanides

All lives operate on more than one level
And I suppose I was no different in that respect
What was strange in my case
Was the distance between those levels
Between one face and another
One life and the other
So extreme
That people connected with one version of me
Would not have recognized the other.
Yet for me it was the easiest thing in the world
To slip in and out
There was no contradiction
My memories overlapping realities
The dream and the
Non dream
The term I use for my waking hours
I realize now
After all this time
That I was never really awake.