Nevermind... Freewrite!

I dreamt all day of catching butterflies, of holding them on my tongue. I saw purple meadows, and lilac bridges, sang laments for the dead child who the buried in me. For seventeen years, the window sat alone, frosted even in springtime. The child sat and waited for the summer to come, to lift her out of the house. She waited for the sounds of the bees, for the honey to seep through her pores. She waited for the ice-cream rush of happiness, the part that felt like butter melting in her belly, for the kisses that would never be hers. For the sun to toast her evenly, to fill in all the parts of her that had been hollowed by time, so she could seep through with the joy of a worriless day.



I dreamt of the penniless theatre-goer, who sat in the shadows and cried for humanity. She had dark hair, and dark eyes that were sunken and wise.



"I had a life once," she said, "But I dreamt it away."



"I had a love once," she said, "But he was a dream."



She was wearing far too many necklaces, and all of her skin was in shadows. Her fingernails were long and her dress was black like the feathers of a crow, dusty with too many travels. I knew she was looking for home.



I dreamt of the sailor with his eyes on the shore. It was misty with fog and his tears. It was green and silver, full of trees and towers, gleaming and vying for a place in the sky. The shore seemed impossibly worn, like a lover who had seen too much of herself in the mirror.



We're all beaten down until we're just the dust of our minds. We're hysterical for something familiar. We want to be reminded of the wholeness we'd had, but we're sifting and shifting, and it's all mixed up. I'm nothing more than a mix of me and the world, and the world is nothing more than a mix of itself and me.



I just want a little bit to keep of the world. The red of my carpet in the June sun, at 4 o'clock, when it would shine right through my window. I want the lilac of the sky on the easter morning in the year I can't remember, and the too-sweet taste of candy that was so good after hours of church. I want to lock your every word in my soul, to remember every toss of your hair. Today, you wore it long and free. I want the exact color brown of your skin, I want a word to name it. I want to put all my little joys in a locket, and to keep them always mine.



After death, after time, after physics has collapsed, I want my quiet little life, and the warble of your voice. I'll have the taste of rasberry jelly buttered toast on Christmas morning, the quiet, silver light of winter, the bells and lights and burning snow, the warmth of the Chinese restaraunt where I shared the last happy moments with my family. I read The Kitchen God's Wife on the bus ride home, and I quitely cried for the love that ate me hollow, and imagined I could smell him in the pages. I thought of the days we spent together in museums, when the world seemed open and full of possibility, even in the face of all that death. Even in the tombs of all those fantastic hopes, he was so funny and alive, I thought that such a joy needed to live forever. When I laughed with him, all unhappiness seemed like a lie.



It seems strange that after all those years of love, I should find myself so completely fallen. My body fleshy and weak, my face pallid and drooping, and my will to care. The more I try to act like I'm happy, the weaker I've become. I don't know this woman, she is not me.