Dream Log

Dream Log – May 7

The sun is jelly-red & my body alights with the heat. I scoop out what I trust is sunscreen with cupped hands, trying to rub it into my arm-skin. I turn around into a room with two large windows. I can see stacks of furniture outside – from my childhood bedroom & my college dorm & my current apartment – swaying in the plangent wind. I try to lower the blinds but they snag, then get twisted & caught in a heap of lopsided mess. I continue lining my skin & wrapping myself with anything I can grab: blankets, towels, cake frosting, cling film. I build this cocoon, my temporary sepulchre, until I cannot see the windows & my mind fades like when the surgeon says to count backwards from 100. Soon it’s purple-black & I know that when I wake from my metamorphosis, the windows will be clear & the furniture will be gone & my consecrated undoing will be over.

Dream Log – August 1

Another Easter egg hunt. Surrounding us are a half-dozen veterinarians – in the trees, grass, shrubs. They tend gently to the sparrows & squirrels & chipmunks. I stand on the porch and throw eggs into the crowd; that’s what these Easter egg hunts entail lately. I’m dating a man. He’s beside me watching the children & eggs & creatures & vets. I ask a few questions, trying to gauge his name or job. I try to peer into his eyes or glance at his mouth but he’s too tall & now that I can’t see his face, I can’t even remember what it looks like.

Dream Log – August 16

I am chased by a tiger-lion morphed animal. A mane, lots of stripes, stalking, running. I slow the tiger-lion down, slip a silk-lead around its neck & tame it. In the morning I catch snakes & share my ice cream with him. My skin hardens to be an animal mother, I become webbed, scaled, thick & green. But my heart beats freely; my soul’s still human. We let the lion free in the yard but he becomes so sad that my children convince me to release him back into the savannah. Years pass: we dig irrigation ditches & plant & sleep & build museums for ourselves. We return to the savannah after a decade of parting with tiger-lion & I know it will be like that Youtube video where the lion remembers those old British men. But this time, my tiger-lion forgets us. I am clawed & my red-heart fades, my thick skin pierced through. My daughter startles me awake. She is sobbing & between heaves says, “Mama I don’t want you to be a watermelon anymore.”