Ghosts, 1994

Dream Journal, February 1-2, 2005

Was feeling strong last night, like I would be okay—wanted to remember.

Had a dream that I was with two people (can’t remember who)—went to Grandma’s house, although it looked like a hybrid of her house and my childhood house.  The house was empty, we were just checking up on it.  Everyone who had lived there had disappeared, except for Grandpa, who we knew had died.  The door to the living room was closed--we’d closed it for some reason having to do with heating or whatever--but it must have opened a crack because a little dog belonging to my companion ran into the room & down to the basement.  We opened the door to that room and called for the dog—we saw him come up from the basement.  But he didn't come up alone.  A girl/young woman came up with him.

I nearly had a heart attack, it was so freaky.  She had been one of the missing, who we had assumed was dead. I didn’t know who she was.  I asked her where she’d been. She said she didn’t know. She just knew she’d be gone for three years.  Whoever had taken her had arranged for her life on her return; everything she wanted to do was set up for her.  She seemed okay with what had happened to her, even though she didn’t exactly know what had happened to her.  All she knew was that they hadn’t done anything evil to her.  She seemed fairly sure about that.  She had a strange air of contentment about the fact that she’d lost three years of her life.  Sort of Stepford-ish, really.

She was going to stay in the house, but I was scared and I wanted to leave.  She told me her name—I can’t quite remember it.  Her last name was something like Westhaven or Westbrook.  Her first name might have been Sharon.  She told me to call her whenever I needed her (which didn’t seem very likely to happen because she scared me).  It seemed like people were staying behind with her at the house, although I don’t know who.  I could see a couple of shadows hanging around her.  She was standing in the front doorway of the house, almost blocking the entrance, on the other side of the screen door from me.  (Here the house looked just like the one in M.F.)  She was bigger than me, and in the dream I felt younger, like I was 21 or 22.  She seemed to be a few years older.  I think she might have reddish hair.

As I was leaving the house I realized that everyone who had disappeared were members of my family—not just random people.  Suddenly I became terrified that whoever was taking them would come for me, too, and I didn’t want that.  Even though they set up her life very nicely for her on her return, I didn’t want to disappear and not know what happened to me for some long stretch of time.  I was completely freaked out.

When I woke up it was in the middle of the night and I felt very afraid.  I thought to myself that maybe I didn’t want to remember after all.  I didn’t feel so brave anymore.

When I fell asleep again I had another dream.  In it is someone whispered to me, “Be quiet,” and I woke up with a start.  Once again I was terrified.  But I thought to myself, no, I will not be quiet!  I am going to remember.  

Disguises, 2005

The Gathering

Essay, 2000

Nevertheless, I have to admit, I get sick of the struggle, of wanting to believe I am something else, only to be daily tormented by the knowledge that, at least in part, I am not.  I have no weapons in my arsenal for self-forgiveness, and maybe that is why I wrote this, to achieve through words what I haven't through thoughts.  I don't know.  In some manner of speaking I do not deserve forgiveness, no matter what my fleet of therapists argue.  Their impression of me and my experiences are necessarily colored through my tell of it, and I cannot ignore that fact.  I only know I never wanted to hurt anyone how I had been hurt.  If my disaster could for one second free someone else of theirs, then, at a minimum, I could be selfish enough to find some comfort in that.  I could know that even though I failed and continue to fail, probably indefinitely so, I helped someone else to win.

In Richard III, Clarence said to his prison keeper, "My soul is heavy, and I fain would sleep."  I understand that.  I wish I didn't.

The hidden door

Poetry Journal, 2000

If you hated me you could have killed me                                                                    

                smote me dead

threw the lightning bolt that cut me off at the knees.

But that would have been too easy.

The time that the car narrowly missed me as I

crossed the street,

the time that she pushed me down the stairs but

I stood up, dusted myself off and carried on—

you know it could have gone differently.

When I contemplated the costs of living as they ranked against

the costs of death,

you could have tipped the scales,

pointed the way home.

Instead I shivered, walked past the knives,

and lived to be stabbed a thousand more times.

I am supposed to believe in the superiority of breathing as I

stand here

                gasping.

I am made to believe that all will be understood as you

speak to me

                in pig Latin.

I could embrace what hysterical preachers teach,

denounce those who make me question my faith.

Instead I am too aware of their pain and their fear.

It could have gone another way.

I could have been allowed even this flawed and thorny

path out of

here.

In my dream he held my hand as I wondered what he

was doing there,

entirely too happy and still unable to see.

You take even my midnight comfort away from me.

I seem resolved here, you know, although for what has

not been made clear.

Every hope, every sneaking suspicion, every wild and

grand fantasy I watched disappear like helium balloons in

the pale and infinite sky.

I wanted to hold on but was cut loose,

left broken but still living on the

ground.

It was not to be.

It was not to be.