dreams_of_the_dead
kerry maybe this will last forever.

if i live to 80 maybe i will still see you the way you were when we last met. i saw you coming down the street dressed like you were in the 70s and i was wearing a tan wool coat and i ducked behind a building because there were hurricanes in my ears.

sitting across a table from you i didn't know if it was scorn or fear or regret flashing across your face like lightning. you had prepared yourself to see me, i think, you were on your way to fucked-up before our beers even arrived. the neck of your sweater was tucked under the triangles of your shirt collar like they'd always been. your forehead was shorter than i remembered. you had a full beard and glasses like gandhi's.

i will continue to age. my skin will become thin and wrinkled as an old silk scarf, my hair will whiten, my hands will be covered in spots the way my father's are now. who knows what i'll remember when i'm awake, the questions i'll still be able to answer, the songs i'll still listen to. perhaps my appetite will shrivel too and i'll eat my meals from a tea saucer.

but you will remain the same. in some dreams you reach for me and in others you push me away. sometimes you don't recognize me at all. but they're not about you anymore, not the way they were when i was trying to understand a world without you.

in the morning i wake startled and i sip my coffee and realize the dreams aren't actually about you; now you're a symbol of my frustration that there's so much i don't know. he says when we die it's simple and unromantic as a light switched off, and our bodies rotting is routine, and if we live it's only in traces of what remains--our belongings, stories, other people's memories. and the way he says it sounds more like an epilogue, or a way to comfort me, an unnecessary indulgence, a kindness.

are dreams just sandcastles built by our subconscious, temporary and whimsical? or are we standing waiting by the mailbox for some letter from beyond? it seems impossible to me that, asleep, i could assemble these worlds on my own. days slip by in monotony and i grind my nails to dust digging for something worth keeping and remembering. i don't want to be alone. i don't think you are alone either, wherever you are. i don't think it's some bright white cloud-carpeted room where we all hang around in idle bliss, but we do go somewhere. every time i encounter you in a dream, it's just a reminder of this frustration of not knowing the destination.
221022
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epitome of incomprehensibility That was powerful and imaginative, kerry.

My dreams of the dead aren't so poetic, as my mind tends to churn out humour-edged dreams, "dark" or not. Once I was in some undefined outdoor location. Grandpa came up to me to talk. I said, confused, "Aren't you dead?" and he admitted he was, looked apologetic, and walked away.

When I woke, this seemed not only funny but also weirdly endearing.
221023
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kerry thank you, e_o_i.
and that dream with your grandpa is certainly endearing! there can be poetry in humor, no?
221024
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e_o_i ...And humour in poetry!

(But now I wish I could sleep and dream of anything non-stressful. I'm nail-bitingly worried about an admittedly trivial university event tomorrow. And that I didn't properly thank the Socio prof I'm working for. She deserves more credit than she's getting in the department now, and I should've insisted that the newsletter mention her. Instead I was caught up in my own thoughts.)
221025
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