things i dream about

flying, not successfully. i get up in the air and then i fall back down. whenever i get up, sometimes it's in space watching models, sometimes it's over the great wall (flying so close my feet can touch it) i'm almost always sure i'm going to drip down the air. sometimes i do.

babies growing inside me like weeds, or coming out of me and needing me. sometimes they are shaped like dragons, sometimes they are ugly and fat, sometimes they are sad and hungry. i dream of babies, everyone having babies, squirting them out like they're mustard in a squeezy containter.

my teeth crumbling like old breath in my mouth, my teeth chipping like a car accident, always my teeth. my teeth are like missing floorboards and in my dreams, they powder and break and fall out and it scares the hell out of me when i look in the mirror.

this boy who i went to work with who i loved for being kind and unhappy. he poisoned himself nightly. i don't think his girlfriend loved him, because she loved lying. i wanted to touch him and so the last night i was ever going to see him, as he was walking off into the night, i grabbed him and i pressed my breasts up against him. i could feel the pressure on them, like i were hugging a wall. he arms flittered against my back, like squirming insect legs until i let go and walked away. i keep dreaming me loves me back and holds me like i am his lying girlfriend. but i don't tell lies.

aliens or vicious attacks from foreigners where everyone i know is running around the the dusty roads and the houses are empty and there is danger coming down in mock lightning bolts. i dream of bombs and my fathers empty body getting bombed, and him flying towards me and landing on me with a dead kiss.

telephones not working. when i need someone because something bad has happened, i always have a plastic telephone in my trembling hand. and i dial and dial pressing the buttons, but i always get it wrong. i can't get hte number right. when i do, no one answers. or sometimes the phone stops working all together. i wander around a disaster scene, crying and trying to reach somebody and i can't. i never do, not even at the end. it is a tragedy, not a comedy.

i dream i mess up at work. i dream i do something so wrong, so stupid, because someone drove through my head too fast and all we have our dirt roads here, you know, so the dust will be settling for hours. i do something wrong and my bosses, big and scary, and glowering down at me, with fire in their cheekbones and they hate me for whatever i have done.