because it will be May today

The dream opens in a well-kept neighborhood. I find myself at the sidewalk of a large home with a sprawling lot full of trees, bushes that have been neatly taken care of – personal. There is an odd sense of familiarity to the scene like I’ve been here before or in the least I am reminded of the old ranch – a direct contrast to this place. There are nice cars in the driveway and the garden is full of small, sturdy flowers. In the next moment I am walking up the driveway toward the front door. Once I get there I hesitate for a moment and then in the next instant I’m inside the house, alone. I hear people moving around inside, the voices of children and adults. I continue to have this feeling of familiarity, an overwhelming warmth that starts in my belly and unravels there, full, thick with emotion. I am in the kitchen now, moving, waiting while this mother and father figure come into view. They are OK with me being there. There are a lot of fragments at this point. I think I say something. I think I hear something, someone moving, a series of questions and answers that don’t add up. Then I’m crying. I’m crying and I’m reaching out for mom. She embraces me and holds me as though I am a baby, her baby, pushing a silent, comforting sound out of her lips, lulling me there in her arms, saying things will be OK some day without uttering the words. The embrace is warm and fills me. For a few seconds I feel OK and the sadness leaves me like blood from an open wound. I close my eyes and stand there sobbing, hoping that the moment will not end, praying as best I can that this is not a dream and that this is my real life. I hold my breath and am afraid to let it out. I want my lungs to keep it all in, to prevent this moment from changing into something else, something closer to the truth. But inevitably it must end. There are more fragments here. I lose track of myself in the illusory details of the dream, the sounds of people nearby, the questions posed by a girl child, “are you my brother?” “No,” I respond. “No I’m not.” The words are deafening. Suddenly this place is full of sound as though a thousand trees are falling at the same time and the impending crash is a noise all itself, a drowning gasp for air, for circulation. Even as I am speaking I realize that I am forcing the dream into a place where it cannot survive. The dream waivers for a moment, a dull sheen as though something heavy, looming and threatening is moving up around it on all sides. There are the impressions of hands around me, huge fingers lost in shadows, the details blurred by inexact sketch work of lines. I watch it move again and then it is still, as though it has become a photograph. The reflection is still and then it is over. I am suffocating in blackness. I cannot breathe. My mind is spiraling and it is all that I can do to remain upright, to retain my balance. In a second there is more silence, the noise of uncertainty like water in the air. I open my eyes and I am wet as the dream ends. I feel my chest throbbing and I am breathing hard, my face slick, my hands numb from being clenched across my chest. After a moment I return, here, in this place with you, all of you out there listening, thoughts lingering, words held in the light – their own universe perched in time and space like shiny balls pushing against a windowsill that refuses to open. Do you feel the darkness? Can you hear how quiet it is between words, between my voice and this recollection? Close your eyes with me. Close your eyes. I am tired, looking for words that aren’t there.