mother_of_mine raze in the past week you've shown up in two of my dreams to bring me old clothes you want me to try on. in both of those dreams, the only thing that fit me was the one piece of clothing you didn't want me to wear. i was always a disappointment to you. why should it be any different when i'm sleeping? the other night it was a different kind of dream. i was sitting on the couch in the living room of a house i don't live in anymore. your husband was choking me. he was trying to kill me. there was no pain. there was no fear. i didn't know i was dreaming, but on some level i understood it wasn't real. i could breathe even when i wasn't supposed to be able to. i played along. i let my mind leave my body. maybe i was dead. maybe i was unconscious. it didn't really matter. you came down the stairs and looked at me. you're always different in my dreams. your hair changes. sometimes you're wearing glasses. sometimes you're not. sometimes you're young. sometimes you're older than you've ever been. sometimes you smile. sometimes you look like you haven't smiled a day in your life. when you show up now, you're usually a neutral character or something crawling toward an ally. i used to be afraid of you even in my dreams. now that doesn't happen so much. this time your hair was brown and long and it looked as tired as your face. you were sad, but you weren't surprised. you knew something like this was going to happen someday. while the man you gave your life to because no one else would take it stood in another room and smiled to himself, proud of what he'd done, you grabbed something that looked like a cross between a crowbar and a small fake christmas tree made of brass. you hit him in the side of the head with it as hard as you could. your hands were crippled by compressed median nerves. just like they are in the waking world. so your version of "hard" was nothing. you didn't hurt him. you fell back from the force of what you tried to put into the blow and landed on your ass. you looked embarrassed. i was embarrassed for you. and i wasn't even there anymore. you stood up. the two of you turned to face each other. you were both so still. then he stopped being still and punched you in the face, pivoting into a right hook that was so hard and so sudden it almost made me flinch. he hit you in the stomach. you fell into a seated position again. he went back into his little reverie. and then i wasn't dead or unconscious. i was back in my body. i stood behind him with a larger christmas tree. a real one. he had enough time to turn his head to the side and see what i was about to do, but not enough time to get out of the way. there was nothing wrong with my hands. i raised the tree over my head and brought it down on top of him hard enough to knock him flat on his face. i got down on my knees and turned him over so i could see him. i slammed his head into the hardwood floor over and over and over and over again. i did it until his face lost its features and turned grey. until even his moustache was gone. i did it until i felt something in the back of his head give. there was no blood, but i knew something had ruptured. he stopped moving. i left him there on his back. i turned to you. i didn't want to see your face bloodied and bruised. i didn't think i could handle that. but i made myself look at you. you were fine. shaken, but fine. so for the first time in my life, you tried to protect me. you waited until you thought i was dead, and all you got for your trouble was a fist in the face and a fist in the gut, but it's more than you ever did in all the years we were awake and more than strangers to each other. 211016 what's it to you? who go blather from