a crisis of infinite earths, recurs

I'm afraid,
in the falsely-recovered
memory, of this place.
It is strange -
and frustrating to me, given
how the image shocks
like a deja vu,

like a recurring but always
straightaway awake-and-fade
dream.
I know
I never actually had this
dream.

Deja vu is a memory-sensory malfunction.
It is not a combination of precognition
and amnesia.

I keep reading this. Later I come back
and read it more. And with never a thing
I can meaningfully add.

Yet deeper than the memory,
I know that in the dream,
I am not afraid. I am
Never afraid.

My waking mind knows
it's all just tricks
of brain-lightning. I insist
I've never been there! I insist
I won't go back. The former is just
fact.

The latter is (I think)
what scares me.