I [Remember] Dreaming

I remember dreaming I slit my wrists, and the dream seemed so real that I woke forceful from the thralls of sleep and inspected my wrists for any damage. But my skin was undamaged; my veins still pulsed, blue and green and alive underneath the light brown epidermis. I wondered briefly what would cause such a dream to spring forth from my subconscious---

BiTCh!! YoU DiRTy WhoRe!!!



----They hit me with the force of a freight train and for a moment, my sight wavered in front of me and instead of the clean white walls of my room facing me, instead of the yellow painted chicklets dancing frozen in equally painted patches of grass, I saw walls smeared with blood---



NO! GaWd, No! SOrRy! So SOrrY! PlEAsE FoRGiVE! PLEasE FOrGIVe! I DiDN’T MeaN It! GAWD!



---Something was wrong.

I shut my eyes and shook my head, hoping that the image of blood would go away. That the dawning horror of something huge and unimaginable would fade back to wherever such horrors haunt when not infecting the mind like a disease. I gripped my bedsheets, eyes still closed and waited for reality—my reality—to sink back in---



Won’T Do It AgaIN!



ThAT’S RighT YoU Won’T! Th’fUck YoU TaKE ME FoR? A FoOL? An IDIot?



---But reality wasn’t forthcoming. I heard rather than saw the blow coming: a whistle of wind as if the air were being shredded in half, heavy labored breathing, the smell of someone’s salty sweat and anticipation. My breath caught. My throat constricted, and suddenly my head whipped back as a phantom fist connected with my jaw and hands, warm, hot, angry hands threw me into my bed sheets, digging ghostly nails into my skin. I cried out in

fear---

YoU LIKe It LikE this. I KnOw yoU do. WhORes AlWays LiKe iT RouGH



---I tried to fight, but there was no one there. No one save me and an empty room wavering from one reality to another. My walls became hardwood and dark, the chicklets disappeared. My bed felt rough, like straw, underneath me, pinching and digging into my skin and when I looked up through eyes filled with red haze, I saw the dark shape of a hulking man looming above me threateningly. He would have been handsome had not an angry, twisted expression covered his features. Almost porcelain-like, like a wrathful doll; I was reminded of a kiddie movie I had seen as a child, where a doll comes to life and goes on a killing spree---



I’M nO WhorE!



---A feeble attempt to save innocence.

This is a mouth that is not mine. A scene from a life that is not mine. I do not utter these words and yet lips that are mine, but not mine part and speak in a pleading, lost keening whine. I wish I could say to this ‘me not me’ that whoever the man is he will not listen. He rears back and slaps ‘me not me’ again, and I think, if he relaxed his face, he would have the visage of a god---



You SaYIng I’mA LiAR!



---One of those small town gods that you would worship on a hot, sunny Saturday afternoon as he sprints across the field with nothing save football tights, shoes and a helmet, and that hot sun would be glinting off his skin like perfectly sculpted bronze. And these heavy, intense emotions would rise up from somewhere deep in your gut and you know—just know—that if you could get that football, small town god with that brilliant smile and fantastic eyes to just look your way—look your way—he’d know you were beautiful and special. That you were an angel sent from “Gawd Aw’Mighty” and every desire of his you’d

fulfill---

I WASn’T! YoU’RE NoT a LiAR! NoT A LiaR!!



---The punch is worse that the slap. Four knuckles barreling into your skin and flesh with no mercy. No mercy at all. And then you’re left alone with this broken and empty feeling inside, because there’s nothing left inside and you feel hollow like a shell. You never meant to be this way. Never. Along time ago, you had dreams. There was going to be this big, white house with a picket fence, three beautiful children, a great job and a wonderful husband. Not this. This prison feel; don’t talk to that waiter too long, don’t flirt, don’t stare, don’t look, don’t touch, don’t feel, don’t be. I’ve given you everything I’ve got; must I give you my soul too?



That other me—the ‘me not me’—sits up in that odd straw, prickly bed, and she’s weeping and I can’t stop the tears, I can’t show her a reality better than this, and I feel so sorry and so bad, and she turns her head just slightly, and there’s this glint that’s coming from somewhere in the dark near her shoes, and she’s going over to it, while I keep staring at the wall, watching it waver between my reality and her’s, and I’m trying to figure out if this is even my reality or am I living in a reality that had existed in this very same room years before? Perhaps it is a reality that had existed before I was me, maybe it as a time when I wasn’t me and she was she, and I didn’t exist at all. But she’s going to that gleaming spot on the floor and when she stands up there’s this really sharp razor in her hand, a simple blade really that you could use to scrub the dried paint off of a window sill, and she’s eying it with this expression of fearful want, like that time she’d seen these birds flying south and she had wanted to join them so bad. The ache had left her breathless and the want had left her sagging to the ground with dry wretches for sobs.



She’s eying this blade and her mouth goes all dry like she hasn’t had water for days, and her stomach moans like she hasn’t eaten either and she’s gripping this blade like it’s her only lifeline to the world. She cradles it like the babies she’s never going to have, and takes it back with her to the bed of straw and I’m wondering what she’s going to do with it. She looks at her wrist, and it’s white porcelain like that small town god with the fantastic smiles, and I don’t understand because my wrist is brown and why am I staring through her eyes and feeling this pain? And she holds the blade just right like a painter and presses against her porcelain, china doll skin and drags this thin, red little line across it real soft and hisses with an exhaled breath like she’s been underwater for too long and she’s finally able to breathe….



I remember I slit my wrists, and then I woke forcefully from my dreams. I inspect my wrists for damage, but there is none. My skin is undamaged; my veins still pulsed, blue and green and alive underneath the light brown epidermis, and I am released from the thralls of sleep to wonder after this strange complexity that has plagued me.