The haunting return of the dream journal
Current mood: sleepeyed and overhung
I'd just left Sarah's house. It was white and full of white leather, like Miami. There was a slightly overgrown lawn. There were two many people there and I couldn't get all the attention I wanted so I left.
I went west, through alleys in Humboldt Park, specifically through alleys in Humboldt Park in the 1980s. At dusk. Everything, all the browns had a certain redness to it, like my memories of the townhouse I was born in. The browns in the alley are much less rich now. In front of me, walking in the same direction, is a fat kid that looks like one of my students. He's half-Asian. Laos or the American Samoa. Incredibly well dressed. His head twitches as if hit suddenly and he falls forward. Weird, I think before something hits my head. It makes a sound like cardboard, it's hard and soft at the same time. I know what it is. I turn around and there's a skinny light-skinned black kid qwith a goatee throwing vegetables at us from out of a bag. I deflect a green pepper, jump into him and sweep his leg out from under him. I try to punch him, but my punches are weak and ineffective [and that is in any dream i've ever had, i cannot punch] , but the Samoan-lookin kid sits on him. I envision him as some great sumo with the guys head between his legs. Wrong nation, I know.
I ask the guy what the fuck? He tells us that we're what's wrong with this nation. Fuckin punks goin into neighborhood they don't belong and fuckin shit up. I reach behind me to see if I still have my mohawk. We're just sitting there, literally sitting on him, when we notice there are two little black kids running around laughing. They don't care about the fight going on in the alley. The girl is wearing a dress and the boy is missing teeth. None of us are angry anymore. When I turn my head, the Asian guy is now my roommate Kyle, who is talking in soft tones.
"So we're cool, right?"
And holds out his hand to help the guy out. I look around and see these VHS tapes lying all over the street. I ask the guy if they're his. He says we knocked them out of a garbage bin. They're all childrens cartoons. Good haul, but mostly Christmas ones. I gather them and throw most of them back in the trash. I keep the yellow one with the abominable snowman riding a too-small abominable snowmobile.
"We should get these kids back inside."
We go in through the backdoor of their apartment building, they show us which door is theirs. Very light, and very clean. We sit on a couch and la-z boy while the kids run amok. There's thick tension between us, but we are becoming fast friends. Then the couple gets home, a nice, young interracial couple. They're surprised to see us, but not Antoine who is the guy that was pelting us, who is apparently their friend.
"So, how do you all know each other," the woman asks.
It's complicated, "Kyle says on the sly.
"We actually kinda met up in the alley just now"
"Oh." Uncomfortable. "I'm going to go fix up dinner"
Then they leave, the children leave. What reemerges are two white men and two white women. Blonde. Professionals. A bit too old to be yuppies. They strip from aprons and button down and set the table naked. I thought they were just gonna change from their work clothes befgore eating, but they were nudists.
We sat down. Antoine was gone, or he wasn't. From somewhere, a young child sat down at the table, dreast. He was the woman with the short hair's son. Her nickname was Mamie. They all in their forties and looked a bit older or in their fifties, looking a tad younger. The seats were low and I seemed to have the same perspective as a child, looking up at everyone and unable to take in more than one person at a time. They treated me as an adult, someone new that they were curious about. They delighted at the fact that I was a poet. I tried to downplay it, blshing. I was nervously setting up strips of white and orange cheese from a platter onto a checkerboard. Ate some. Replaced some. Mamie asks me why a smart man would be so fidgety and not immediately set up a proper game of chess. I blush. One of the other men, who talks the way rich people do on old sitcoms, like Thurston Howell III, asks how Mamie can request anything but idleness from a stranger.
"Oh I'm not talking about MY son, he doesn't have to do anything, but this is a man of beauty."
I'm thinking like I'm drunk, "Truth is beauty, and power is sexy so I have to make my own. Of course I'm completely powerless so perhabs I need another, what's that word?"
"Parable" Kyle offers.
"Anagram" I say.
Anagram is certainly not the word I'm looking for.
"Very good," Mamie claps, "Of course you're completely beautiful, you know."
This coming from a fairly attractive middle aged woman, naked and sitting next to her husband and son, who continue stuffing their faces as if their mom/wife hadn't just fllowed it up with a wink. I don't believe her anyway, and soon decide it's time to leave. When I open the door to a blinding sunrise. I awake.
I'd just left Sarah's house. It was white and full of white leather, like Miami. There was a slightly overgrown lawn. There were two many people there and I couldn't get all the attention I wanted so I left.
I went west, through alleys in Humboldt Park, specifically through alleys in Humboldt Park in the 1980s. At dusk. Everything, all the browns had a certain redness to it, like my memories of the townhouse I was born in. The browns in the alley are much less rich now. In front of me, walking in the same direction, is a fat kid that looks like one of my students. He's half-Asian. Laos or the American Samoa. Incredibly well dressed. His head twitches as if hit suddenly and he falls forward. Weird, I think before something hits my head. It makes a sound like cardboard, it's hard and soft at the same time. I know what it is. I turn around and there's a skinny light-skinned black kid qwith a goatee throwing vegetables at us from out of a bag. I deflect a green pepper, jump into him and sweep his leg out from under him. I try to punch him, but my punches are weak and ineffective [and that is in any dream i've ever had, i cannot punch] , but the Samoan-lookin kid sits on him. I envision him as some great sumo with the guys head between his legs. Wrong nation, I know.
I ask the guy what the fuck? He tells us that we're what's wrong with this nation. Fuckin punks goin into neighborhood they don't belong and fuckin shit up. I reach behind me to see if I still have my mohawk. We're just sitting there, literally sitting on him, when we notice there are two little black kids running around laughing. They don't care about the fight going on in the alley. The girl is wearing a dress and the boy is missing teeth. None of us are angry anymore. When I turn my head, the Asian guy is now my roommate Kyle, who is talking in soft tones.
"So we're cool, right?"
And holds out his hand to help the guy out. I look around and see these VHS tapes lying all over the street. I ask the guy if they're his. He says we knocked them out of a garbage bin. They're all childrens cartoons. Good haul, but mostly Christmas ones. I gather them and throw most of them back in the trash. I keep the yellow one with the abominable snowman riding a too-small abominable snowmobile.
"We should get these kids back inside."
We go in through the backdoor of their apartment building, they show us which door is theirs. Very light, and very clean. We sit on a couch and la-z boy while the kids run amok. There's thick tension between us, but we are becoming fast friends. Then the couple gets home, a nice, young interracial couple. They're surprised to see us, but not Antoine who is the guy that was pelting us, who is apparently their friend.
"So, how do you all know each other," the woman asks.
It's complicated, "Kyle says on the sly.
"We actually kinda met up in the alley just now"
"Oh." Uncomfortable. "I'm going to go fix up dinner"
Then they leave, the children leave. What reemerges are two white men and two white women. Blonde. Professionals. A bit too old to be yuppies. They strip from aprons and button down and set the table naked. I thought they were just gonna change from their work clothes befgore eating, but they were nudists.
We sat down. Antoine was gone, or he wasn't. From somewhere, a young child sat down at the table, dreast. He was the woman with the short hair's son. Her nickname was Mamie. They all in their forties and looked a bit older or in their fifties, looking a tad younger. The seats were low and I seemed to have the same perspective as a child, looking up at everyone and unable to take in more than one person at a time. They treated me as an adult, someone new that they were curious about. They delighted at the fact that I was a poet. I tried to downplay it, blshing. I was nervously setting up strips of white and orange cheese from a platter onto a checkerboard. Ate some. Replaced some. Mamie asks me why a smart man would be so fidgety and not immediately set up a proper game of chess. I blush. One of the other men, who talks the way rich people do on old sitcoms, like Thurston Howell III, asks how Mamie can request anything but idleness from a stranger.
"Oh I'm not talking about MY son, he doesn't have to do anything, but this is a man of beauty."
I'm thinking like I'm drunk, "Truth is beauty, and power is sexy so I have to make my own. Of course I'm completely powerless so perhabs I need another, what's that word?"
"Parable" Kyle offers.
"Anagram" I say.
Anagram is certainly not the word I'm looking for.
"Very good," Mamie claps, "Of course you're completely beautiful, you know."
This coming from a fairly attractive middle aged woman, naked and sitting next to her husband and son, who continue stuffing their faces as if their mom/wife hadn't just fllowed it up with a wink. I don't believe her anyway, and soon decide it's time to leave. When I open the door to a blinding sunrise. I awake.
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