Three Dreams
The day I left you, I dreamt of you twice. I don't remember the dreams as much as I remember the way I felt afterwards. In the first dream, you were working on my car outside your house in the greenery and sunshine. You took it apart completely, gutted it of its engine and internal parts until it was just an empty shell. Nina, the girl you loved last summer, was there with you, standing by and handing you the tools, as fiercely beautiful as she ever was. It was so humid I could have choked on the air. Something happened; I can't remember what--maybe you kissed her--but I was devastated, and I said, I'll never be what you want, so just stop trying to make me something else. And you were protesting, trying to soothe me. She stood right beside you, her eyes catching sunlight; your shoulders almost touched. I told you it was done, and you would have gone after me, but she stopped you, she touched your forearm and you stood still. That's what I remember most, the way she touched you, and you stopped.
In the second dream, you were asking me to go onstage. You said it was your thesis, but I know you did your thesis a year ago, and I didn't think it was very good. Backstage in the dark, you took me by the shoulders and looked into my eyes and told me I had to go on and sing with you. But there's no music, I said. You told me it didn't matter. Then you walked me on. The black, blank stage seemed to stretch on for miles under my feet, and I was blinded by the theater floodlights. I tried to sing, but nothing came out. So I ran out the backdoor of the theater into the overwhelming sunlight. You chased after me, yelling, How could you do this? And I kept saying, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Then I started to walk home in the heavy, bloated heat. I walked through swamps and marshes, through fields and forests--I walked for miles and miles towards nowhere, and I didn't look back.
*
I woke up amazed to find you sound asleep next to me, hair sleep-tousled, a look of utter calm on your face. You were always so beautiful, even when things between us got so ugly, and I always loved that blue bedroom in the quiet mornings. But things would never be good again between us, no matter how hard I tried to keep it simple, to be reduced to love and light.
Later I asked you to walk to Whistle Stop with me, and since I knew what I was going to do it felt a little like that scene from Of Mice and Men, like I was going to kill you. We walked through the dandelion-dappled fields to the pond and sat on the splintery old dock. A red-winged blackbird sang full-throated from the rushes. And then I explained that I couldn't do it, as much as I wanted to make the most of it, you were hurting me too much every day with all the cruel things you said and did. You got angry, you said terrible things, but I didn't care, I was crying and it was going to be over for good soon and then I walked away through the dandelions. I didn't look over my shoulder to see if you were coming after me--not once. I thought about getting drunk, but instead I just lay there in that blue room for a few hours. I didn't cry. You stormed in and took all your things--book, toothbrush, jeans. You stood over me for awhile, and when neither of us said anything for a long time, you left, slamming the door hard behind you.
*
Last night I dreamt of you again. We were at your house, that grand Victorian mansion with its new coat of lavender paint. Katydids were singing somewhere in the night. You need to give me my blankets back, you said.
The orange one? I asked. There was the ugly ochre fleece blanket you had lent me years ago, now bored through with cigarette burns.
All of them.
But that's it. That's the only one I have. You took back everything else. You took it with you.
It's cold at night, Janis.
Then I told you that I'd give you everything--your orange blanket, my white wine-stained one, the blue comforter that matched the blue walls--I'd give it all to you, I'd give you whatever you wanted. And when I woke up, I was alone again in the blue room, and it was day.
In the second dream, you were asking me to go onstage. You said it was your thesis, but I know you did your thesis a year ago, and I didn't think it was very good. Backstage in the dark, you took me by the shoulders and looked into my eyes and told me I had to go on and sing with you. But there's no music, I said. You told me it didn't matter. Then you walked me on. The black, blank stage seemed to stretch on for miles under my feet, and I was blinded by the theater floodlights. I tried to sing, but nothing came out. So I ran out the backdoor of the theater into the overwhelming sunlight. You chased after me, yelling, How could you do this? And I kept saying, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Then I started to walk home in the heavy, bloated heat. I walked through swamps and marshes, through fields and forests--I walked for miles and miles towards nowhere, and I didn't look back.
*
I woke up amazed to find you sound asleep next to me, hair sleep-tousled, a look of utter calm on your face. You were always so beautiful, even when things between us got so ugly, and I always loved that blue bedroom in the quiet mornings. But things would never be good again between us, no matter how hard I tried to keep it simple, to be reduced to love and light.
Later I asked you to walk to Whistle Stop with me, and since I knew what I was going to do it felt a little like that scene from Of Mice and Men, like I was going to kill you. We walked through the dandelion-dappled fields to the pond and sat on the splintery old dock. A red-winged blackbird sang full-throated from the rushes. And then I explained that I couldn't do it, as much as I wanted to make the most of it, you were hurting me too much every day with all the cruel things you said and did. You got angry, you said terrible things, but I didn't care, I was crying and it was going to be over for good soon and then I walked away through the dandelions. I didn't look over my shoulder to see if you were coming after me--not once. I thought about getting drunk, but instead I just lay there in that blue room for a few hours. I didn't cry. You stormed in and took all your things--book, toothbrush, jeans. You stood over me for awhile, and when neither of us said anything for a long time, you left, slamming the door hard behind you.
*
Last night I dreamt of you again. We were at your house, that grand Victorian mansion with its new coat of lavender paint. Katydids were singing somewhere in the night. You need to give me my blankets back, you said.
The orange one? I asked. There was the ugly ochre fleece blanket you had lent me years ago, now bored through with cigarette burns.
All of them.
But that's it. That's the only one I have. You took back everything else. You took it with you.
It's cold at night, Janis.
Then I told you that I'd give you everything--your orange blanket, my white wine-stained one, the blue comforter that matched the blue walls--I'd give it all to you, I'd give you whatever you wanted. And when I woke up, I was alone again in the blue room, and it was day.