There are places I go when I’m dreaming. Hybrids of my familiars and unknowns. Crude renderings of my thoughts leaking down from my subconscious. These brain paintings fill my nights with a life more vivid than I see in daylight.
My dose of blue and white capsule band-aids holds tight through the morning, sticking to hairs with vigor. Midday passes as they still cover my scabs. Nude plastic that looks like skin. I can get through these first hours with relative ease. But by nightfall their adhesive loses its power, the band-aid falls off, and the cracks in my mind show. Water drips out of the cracks slowly, in tortuous rhythms, sheer pools of liquid thoughts building under the sink. The pools grow too heavy, the droplets slide through the marble tiled floors, they tumble through the ceiling, sizzling electric cables as they go, and fizzing as some evaporate. These fried wires and burnt-out souls smell acrid and smoky. I will not dream of those that vaporize tonight. The rest of the water falls fast, methodical drips on the glass kitchen table two stories down. The puddles overflow, shattering the glass, and the dreams rain over me quickly. Mind wet and slick, I sink into the bed, the anticipation overwhelming. I’ve waited all day. I draw the covers up, tuck my knees to my chest, close my eyes and—
I'm in my elementary school auditorium. Looking at the backs of people sitting on the neon red-flowered couch we had in my first house. They are entangled, kissing with passion. I move closer and recognize their faces. Serena, with her white-blonde hair. A feature strangers always compliment her on. She turns her cheek and I catch a glimpse of her big brown eyes glowing on pale freckled skin. Serena, my middle-school best friend whom I haven't seen in years. I wonder what she is like now. She brushes straight locks of dark brown hair off a tanned forehead. It’s Sam. The boy I went to preschool with. Whose mother and mine were always close. They still make time, now and again to chat over lunch. I see him as a teetering toddler who came over for playdates and loved to try on my pink ballet tutu. His lisping voice is but a distant memory of childhood. I don't look at them for long. I walk through the double doors of the gym, the metal push bar clashes with the lock, its banging echoes as I leave their heat behind. Wishing to forget their intertwined hands on my couch, I walk through the hallway of peeling eggshell yellow and watch the elementary school disappear ahead of me. The walls morph into technicolor vendor stands. My feet feel pavement beneath me. The world is loud with the chatter of people passing, exchanging money, rushing to the train. I turn to the side with the sound of my mother's voice. She appears from behind a construction candy cone, blowing thick smoke into the street. With a gentle laugh, she latches her arm in mine. Cars are pass—
They are gone. Replaced by the blaring of my alarm. I’m clutching the white duvet under my arms, the same color as my knuckles. I’m drenched. Wet as if a pipe burst above my bed. It’s just sweat, though, plastering my legs to the sheets. I peel them off like dead skin and exhaustion hits as the images flood in. The night plays back, rewinding in rapid flashes. I breathe cold air from the open window and try to separate what is real from the fictitious tales in my head. I close my eyes for a moment and I’m back.
Cars are passing by in slow motion. Shadow figures drive them and they go where they want without rules or traffic lights. My mother is next to me, her forearms pressed against me, and she tugs me ahead. I am usually dragging her. Rousing her every morning and ripping the covers from her warm body. She gallops now, so unlike my perpetually late and slovenly mom. She must be desperate to get there. We end up at an ice rink. Not a traditional rink, but a dream town paved with smooth ice instead of concrete. I look down and find my feet laced in skates. Elegant wihte boots with freshly sharpened blades gripping steady on the ice underfoot. They are tight around my ankles, gripping skin, but unlike the skates hanging dusty in my garage, they do not give me blisters. I take off and I’m flying, but my chest heaves with the weight of the crisp cream-colored paper envelope in my hands. I can’t find the mailbox. My mother has been lost from my side. I move fast through the town, ignoring the Christmas cheer and holiday galore of this picturesque town. Nauseous from the small, blinking colored lights strung overhead. I’m still searching for the four-foot-tall midnight-blue mailbox. For a handle to open and slide the letter inside. My skates are gone and I’m running down Grand Central Station’s steps. The yellow haze of curved wrought-iron lamps casts my way. I jump the last stair and am suddenly back gliding on the ice. Up ahead I see the corner of a mailbox peeking past the building's edge. I race to it, knocking into a lady in a red scarf, sending her bouncing into a pyramid of oranges. A vendor yells but I don't hear his words. I stop short, ice pricks litter the blades and I slam into the mailbox. I take the letter, addressed to Them, and slip it in down the hatch to be sent. I brace my body against the box and try to stop my head from spin—
It's still spinning, but I'm in bed again. Curled up freezing and yet still soaking in sweat. I must have run in my sleep, but I know I didn’t. I was confined by the tangled blankets, looped around my body like a sling. The sheets catch me above the ground, suspending the limbs not on the mattress. I unwind myself, teasing the sheets from my torso down to my thighs and farther past my feet, letting them drop in a heap at the foot of my bed. I stand then, dizzy. A world through pointillism as tiny black dots invade my peripheral vision from the quickness of my standing. The blood leaves my brain dripping down my spine back to my heart.
I close my eyes for a minute to refocus. There is an emerald couch I’m sitting on. Thick green velvet, growing darker on the paths my fingers trace. It is more a daybed than a couch, a slanted back arching over itself in folds towards the ground. The floor is tiled. A checkerboard of alternating black and white squares three by three feet. I’m in stockings and black kitten heels. I listen to the clink of my shoes on the tiles. My legs are crossed like a lady, yet my toes are pressing deep into the floor, causing my heels to rhythmically click and my legs to bounce rapidly. “Stop,” a voice commands. A veiny hand follows the voice and comes down on my knee to prevent the anxious jerking. Whose hand I—
But I open my eyes and look down on my bare feet. Slender feet that struggle to find shoes narrow enough not to slide off when I walk. Toes that do not descend in a perfect diagonal, but are interrupted by my slightly tall second toe. The alarm rings again: I’m late for school. I run to the bathroom and reach for my orange bottle, snapping the childproof lock off with ease. I down the pill fast with the last drop of the tea I made last night, now cold from sitting out in the air and bitter with oversaturation from the forgotten tea bag. It will stop now, I pray. The colors will dilute again and the images will fade, at least for a few hours while the bandage is tight, covering the scabs and scars with its temporary might.
⬨ ⬨ ⬨
The desk is a beige rectangle. New and smooth, unmarred by the bored students who will one day take their pens and carve their names through the wax seal to the wood underneath. No corners filled with Ticonderoga lead markings and encouraging notes cussed out. A blank slate, ready for the taking.
I’m listening to her voice drone on. I couldn't care less. The final class of the afternoon. The sun is already trying to pass the horizon. Sleep is calling me. I had been awake all night. The clarity of the darkness behind closed eyelids beckons. I give in, craving a taste.
The house was burned, but it tastes like spearmint. I press my head against the scorched walls. My hair catches in the scratchy ridges and pulls at my skull as I sink down to my knees. I collapse, smashing my head back into the walls. Pieces crumble off and coat my forehead in charred ash. Blacked dandruff of this home. I go to brush off my forehead.
I jerk up. For just a moment I had fallen asleep. My body started to fall, toppling sideways before the motion seized me from sleep and threw me up again. I fidget to find my footing. I look around with panic. Did anyone notice me? I feel a prick in my head and slide my fingers down the length of a strand of hair. The hair coils back up towards my head free of the tension of my hand, though the singed wood chip it held sits between my fingers. I’m trying to slow my breathing. To center myself on the voices discussing around me. I listen to each word as I stretch my eyes open. My eyebrows skim my hairline, and my eyelashes brush my cheek. Stay alert, I beg myself. I need to stay awake but the guilty convict in my mind is taking a sledgehammer to the floodgates. He’s banging away and the band-aid is not enough anymore. There are too many cracks. The water is pooling. The drips are falling. A final bang of the sledgehammer and I'm standing under the waterfall. I feel each drop connect with my skin and I’m drowning.
I don't remember leaving class, or driving home. I’m sure I said hi to my parents but I can't recall. I know I got into my bed and flicked off the lights. I had spent all day longing for night again. Catching snippets of my dreamscape when I close my eyes, like stowed fireflies in a glass jar. Paintings that capture me for a second and help me remember where I go when I'm sleeping. I dreamed about it, all day, sitting in waiting rooms, anxiously awaiting slumber. Waiting to wake up and for life to resume again.