Sestina!fic #4, "The Truth in Dreams"

[bironic]

Others:
- Sestina #1: House post-infarction
- Sestina #2: "A Typical Day in Diagnostics"
- Sestina #3: "Breaking the Cycle"



Title: The Truth in Dreams
Character: Gregory House, with House/Wilson undertones
Rating: PG
Word Count: 362
Prompts: truth (from daasgrrl), Vicodin, Wilson, dreams, leg, puzzles
Spoilers: Vague for "Meaning" and "Cane and Able"
A/N: This ended up veering far away from what I intended. I'm a little sorry I substituted "dreams" for a previous prompt; it...cheapens the rest of the words. ETA: Have been overruled on that point. Thanks, guys. *love*


Insomniac, he'll stare at the ceiling pondering truth
Or watch TV or read or go for a ride or call Wilson.
Or he'll lie half-conscious after his bedtime Vicodin,
His mind working, working, solving intricate puzzles
He forgets by morning. Most nights, though, his leg
Allows him a few hours of solid sleep. And he dreams.

Some nights, of course, he dreams
That nothing happened to his leg
And he's running by the river with Wilson,
Who never had to write the scrips for Vicodin
Or convince Cuddy to hide the truth
To save House from his own puzzles.

Vibrant and whole, he doesn't need puzzles
Until he wakes and remembers the truth.
There are nightmares, too—terrifying dreams
Where he can't make sense of anything or his leg's
Gone or he's paralyzed and sometimes Wilson
Is there, laughing, refusing to give him Vicodin.

If he takes an extra Vicodin
Before going to sleep, his dreams
Warp and swirl like a face or a leg
In a fun-house mirror. Senses blend: He tastes truth,
Sees pain, smells music, hears love, feels puzzles.
No logic. No boundaries. He is Chase is Stacy is Wilson.

By day he doesn't talk about any of it, not even with Wilson,
Who'd rather lecture him on his obsession with puzzles,
His recent quest for meaning and his tireless hunt for truth.
Besides, Wilson would only play shrink and use his dreams
To tell him why he's miserable and alone and addicted to Vicodin
And suffering more pain than he can blame on his leg.

Tonight he wakes slowly to distant sirens, a tingling leg
And damp sheets. As he gropes in the dark for his Vicodin,
The visions slip away before the pieces of the puzzle
Fit together—something about heat, and need, and Wilson,
And a sense of pure contentment possible only in dreams.
He downs a pill, hoping to prolong that peace but knowing the truth.

Four a.m. Too late, too early. He rubs his leg and waits for the Vicodin
To kick in. Pushing aside the puzzle of his friendship with Wilson,
He tries not to admit that buried truths will surface in dreams.



* * *


x-posting to housefic and house_wilson.

Thoughts very welcome.

Comments

[bironic.livejournal.com]

Thanks. It was "piano" originally, and then it went through a few changes I can't remember and landed on "dreams."

Yes, on purpose -- those "extra" two lines belonged subject-wise with the preceding stanza, while the last four belonged together. Did you find it very distracting?

[topaz-eyes.livejournal.com]

A little distracting, yes. I did see why you grouped them by subject on reading though. For formal poetry like sestinas, does format trump subject or does it matter? It's been a loooong time since I took poetry.

[bironic.livejournal.com]

Oh man, LJ ate my comment.

I don't remember having learned about internal organization for sestinas in any classes, but I've seen poems over at McSweeney's online magazine where stanza lengths and line breaks deviate from the standard while the end words remain in the proper order. Thought I'd try that here. Maybe I'd be better off breaking up "Breaking the Cycle" than this one, though, since here it was just the one occurrence and that could be confusing or distracting, while in the other there are three or four places I'd like to bridge or splice stanzas. Hm.