In times of intense tragedy and sadness, everyone has his or her own way of coping. Some protest violently, and others peacefully congregate. Artists, meanwhile, create art, and storytellers tell stories.

And if you’re poet/activist Saul Williams, you write a powerful piece of dream-based fiction. In response to the death of Freddie Gray, and the subsequent riots in Baltimore, Williams has written an op-ed piece for SPIN. It’s angled around his current Martyr Loser Kingdom tour, and it’s a poignant and haunting peak inside a futuristic dream set in a world that’s had enough of police-specific injustice.

An excerpt:

Weird dream. In a burning library, on the third or fourth floor, not actually panicked about the fire below. I’m copying passages from books before throwing them out the window. Outside a huge pendulum hangs over the city, like the moon on a string. I read one passage that begins, “Baltimore had long ago burnt to the ground,” which disintegrates in my hands before I have a chance to read more.

Read the rest of the essay over at SPIN.