Waiting

“Hold fast to dreams,
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird,
That cannot fly.” 
― Langston Hughes

River, 1999

This is what I know.

That a window left open when
even the trees shiver with premonition of
sorrowful weather,
it will suppress you.
It will make you wish you had noticed,
make you wish that you had been warned.
You will close your eyes a thousand
times, feel the groove of the wood against
the palms of your hands,
hear the decisive thud that assured you of
closure. 
Until the pang of knowledge forces the
window betrayed again.
And, when you burst through the kitchen door,
find the papers curling at the edges,
a river of consequences running across
the floor,
you will wish you had never pretended.

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.