In another dream, she laid her head down under a willow, its branches arcing against the sky, each dipping down across the night sky to net her with great glowing fingers. Her hair fell in among the weeds, wormed its way in among them. Taking root as glassy stalks, spires signaling the coming dawn. All kinds of animals howled around her. The closer the dogs got the quieter they became, falling into whispers as they touched nuzzle to her ear. She could hear hot animal breath in her ears as they sidled up next to her, settling in for the night. The dogs whispered deathly quiet. Not a stir. Hot breath churning her hair as it fell as if some great glowing tree on the top of a hill was speaking to her. Silence all around. Stupefying. Her eyes grew huge and sparkled at night, bigger and bigger as the alpha dog whispered in her ear. Pristine darkness, engulfing shadow, the grass yielded below her weight, tiny blades spared by the contours of her body humming under the tree, truly alive.
Living on boiled eggs from the gas station. Not much coffee… I’m driven by the most pointless things. That bird squawking over my head knows what I’m talking about. He lives with a dozen other parrots somewhere on the edge of town. They’re all escaped pets and by now they have forgotten how to talk human. Instead, when they’re in the air flying a weird gurgle reverberates through the flock, an echo of an echo filtered through a parrot throat. Mocking the mocker. It’s the sound of aliens, just unreal. Those motherfuckers fly upside down!
The 7-Eleven man screamed at me. Wounded, I ran away despite my lame foot, into the forest. Moths descend on me in the middle of the night. In the morning I wake up with tiny white bites over most of my exposed flesh; their poison liquor colors my whole day. Now I don’t know if what I’m doing or saying is for me or for my moths. I knew there was a tiny comfortable place for me at the center of these ruins and it was an intensely comforting thought. I fingered small pieces of wood in my apron pocket as I walked through the forest, counting out the prayers of our shared language. I buried myself deeper, light seemed to vanish completely amid heavy dark clouds of wet bear fur hanging off low branches. Gore collected at the bases of trees. I was a pathetic organism, pressed to the wall of its orgone cabin of mud and tar, insulated at the cold center of the earth. I had a feeling I would be there forever —
I approached a cabin in the dark. I got too close was pulled inside and experienced a horrible dream.
I went looking for a cat among some I found at a shelter in my foster parents’ yard. Brown pelts lay in small stacked chicken coops in the backyard. Cats slept everywhere. I’d stoop down, call out, and one would emerge from under the porch. After my dream cat started freaking me out I stooped down only to see a slithering cat snake (calico fur) uncoiling under the porch. The thing is, in my waking life I wouldn’t have been afraid of the dream cat. I would have had pity for it, of course… Last summer Kim broke away from the gang and left Peetie, Ronnie, and Rick out of the loop completely — and they withered and died. I’m not even sure if they ever existed. They left no trace.
Dust gathered along strands of my hair, I shook it off. Each piece fell like stars down to the swamp below. I may have stared because I hadn’t seen you in a long time but was wrenched from this gaze by muffled cries from outside. At our camp on the edge of a Portland rail yard a pile of shredded sleeping bags sizzled on top of an extinguished campfire. I could hear a bunch of hippies screaming in the distance under a winter sky that was almost brown. Out here it was turning into late morning. Tight ropes of frozen drool hemmed us inside the camp. Icy fields surrounded us, hanging silently at our feet. I looked down and saw marks made in the mud where a naked old stoner covered in blood was dragged sleeping along a trail. There they were cavorting like so many octopi in the midst of this pungent morass, the men here obscure its waters with their tentacles. Only one of them, a big redhead, dared to plant himself naked in front of me, laughing in my face. His huge balls bounced up and down as he laughed. The sight of the red he-devil disgusted me.
Everything has been a waste. Wasted breath. Leaks sprung, flows away. She’s wet around her eyes and around the corners of her mouth. Drafts of air chill her tears and stain her collar, more than usual. She lies alone on a low stage in the rear of a loud, dark room downtown. Lying there all these years, waiting for me to discover her. Moping around like a real teen… realizations settle down at the table to take care of the girl who had actually once been one. An alarm went off, she aired out the fireplace, smoky air swishing around on the linoleum, finding residue sticking to the windows she licked at the side of the house, bladders of mineral-rich salt foam in the shiny letters by the front door. Mineral deficiencies made her weak, anemic, sleeping most of the day, scooping up particles of food, tonguing bits of cream out of the palms of her hands. House Mom brought her bits of material to build up her nest. Carpet swatches, rolls of awning material picked clean. She tells her that she will get very sleepy… in a dream she tells herself that her sleep is old and worn and unrolling like a wise scroll. And that if she is able, she should tell her dreaming self to read what’s written on it… Inside I fell asleep and dreamed that I went to select a cat in a Kitten Center. All I wanted was a black and white one that looked like the cat at the top of the ravine, but the only cat that kept coming up to me was freakish and weird. Nauseating. It was small and grey-brown with a weasel head. Probably very sweet if I had given it a chance, but I didn’t want to be close to it at all. This dream cat kept coming up to me, biting my fingers with its toothless mouth and all I felt were cold gums. It was blind with tiny holes on either side of a big wet nose that was black and not at all shiny. I ran away but the cat would follow me everywhere, always underfoot, and just as suddenly I began to notice other cats everywhere, partially decomposed carcasses half-buried in the sawdust. Kicking up tufts of fur and sawdust I knelt down to a low utility vent on the side of the house and saw a huge calico cat-fur snake uncoiling in the darkness. Endlessly unraveling to reveal no end in sight.