Ever Elusive

For a time its easy
days and weeks of simple sleep
a stretch so long
I almost forget the old foe
waiting in the bedroom gloom
our protracted armistice
lulled me into complacency.

But the night comes
as inevitable as breakfast or bathroom breaks
when Morpheus is no where to be found
I lie awake
and toss and turn
and see the ones I've wronged
in the shadowed corners and late night fog.
All, at this point, rote- but haunting still.

And as the passing minutes turn to hours
and I calculate my dwindling slumber
I realize in some small way I've missed it
like heartache which lingers so long it becomes
companionable.
I missed my old friend
Insomnia
because it was with me for so long
and because
it was mine.

Graffiti 172

"Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before." -Edgar Allan Poe

"We all dream; we do not understand our dreams, yet we act as if nothing strange goes on in our sleep minds, strange at least by comparison with the logical, purposeful doings of our minds when we are awake." -Erich Fromm

"Myths are public dreams, dreams are private myths." -Joseph Campbell

A Disturbing Dream 17

I am in a large house. I'm staying with a friend or an acquaintance.

I wake up from an afternoon nap and the house is empty.

For some reason I'm drawn to the basement which is also a partial garage.

A begin searching through the boxes, bikes, and miscellaneous equipment.

Behind a box I find my dog Pepper who was put to sleep five years ago.

She has three legs. A new development.

She hobbles out to me, her tail wagging, and I collapse on the floor stunned and elated.

She climbs into my lap, I cradle her, she licks my face.

I wonder if she has been alive this whole time. If my dad did not in fact put her to sleep five years ago. That maybe he simply set her loose, unable to go through with it. And during the course of those intervening years she lost a leg. Or, I think, maybe that was the price she had to pay to comeback.

I find a leash in the garage and take her for a walk. We are in LA and its warm. Pepper is as excitable and joyous as I remember. We walk along basking in the sunlight, I contented and feeling whole, Pepper sniffing everything she can get her nose in front of.

I fade out of the dream and into my bed slowly, filled with a deep melancholy for my loving and loyal companion who has moved on.

A Disturbing Dream 16

I am in an empty, blank, high-ceilinged conference room.

It is after work hours and there's no one around. I'm waiting for something.

The lights are off. There is a faint gloom coming through the windows from the sun which is almost completely set.

Everything is grey and bleak.

I look up. My grandmother's disembodied head is floating in the corner. Ghostly not gory.

She is not looking at me, seemingly cannot see me. I try to call out to her but my throat is dry and stuck.

She is praying. All I hear is a faint "...oh Lord...dear God..."

I am certain she is praying for me. I grab hold of my mind and drag myself away.

I wake up in my room but I know it is not my room. I am still caught. The huddled form next to me should be Nicole but I know that if I draw back the covers it will be some dark and shadowed thing. I lay down and close my eyes willing consciousness.

The beeps and grind of the garbage truck awaken me. I am relieved but cannot shake the residual foreboding.

Nótt

For a time sleep was just oblivion
devoid of dreams
necessitated by the drink
otherwise a terrifying wakefulness
burning and exhausted eyes
slipping over shadows
caught in static limbo
a crippling lethargy.

Following the purge, dreams returned
but not pleasant fantasies or amorous encounters
nightmares every single night
for a year
regret and shame and panic
bubbling from their rusted cage
plaguing the comfort of unconsciousness
slumber held only penance, no relief.

Finally some regularity
at times visited by visions of dark and fertile woods,
of secret crooked mazes ripe for solving,
of gliding through the warm night skyline
but dread, not completely gone, still remains
occasional reminders of an alternate reality
specters of broken hands, hearts thick with desperation,
and the scree and clink of consumed drink.

Mostly though there is simply Sleep
the former foe placated by defeat.

There Are Other Worlds Than These

When I was a boy I lapped soda from a bowl.
Checked every nook, closet, and cabinet for a way to Narnia.
Knew that if I pedaled my bike fast enough I would leave the ground and fly away.
Rigged up a string system so I could open and close my door from my bed.
Slept under the dining room table for a week.
Slept in the basement for a summer.
Slept on a cot next to my bed for a year.
Always slept on top of my comforter, never under it.
During dinner I would leave the table then return with a towel over my arm claiming to be a waiter.
I always helped the checkout person scan groceries.
I cried a lot.
I yelled and screamed a lot.
I'd talk to Lego people or X-men action figures for hours.
I'd walk around parks listening to books on tape, lost in more exciting worlds.
I loved Neverending Story and Phantom Tollbooth but I always wondered, after discovering a world of fantasy, magic, and danger

Why would they ever return?

Comfort

blankets
over bare skin
warmth
in crooks and cranies
neck nuzzles and shoulder hollows
tangled limbs which softly kiss
spoken word sends adrift

horror comes
swift and low
panic and premonition
gasp awake
lingering intuition
reality sounds paper thin
until sleep comes once again

A Disturbing Dream 15

I'm standing outside of an old theater alone. Just having seen something in black and white with Paul Newman. It's dark and I'm smoking a cigarette.

A short, fat, greasy man comes shambling down the sidewalk. He has a plaid blue and green flannel shirt on and food-stained grey sweatpants. His hair is a mess of black, white and grey plastered to his skull and falling in his face. His eyes are blood shot. He smells like booze and musk. He stops in front of me and turns.

"Do you know who I am?" He says.

"Yeah" I say "you're George Lucas."

"I'm the GENIUS George Lucas." He swayed, spit, and almost fell. "And don't fucking forget it..."

"Fuck off George."

"What kind of shiiit were they playing tonight?"

"Hud."

"Fffffffucking NEWMAN. Ffffffucking dressing-boy." His eyes bulged. "I created a religion. I created a mythos. I legitimized science fiction in cinema!"

"Kubrick did it first. You haven't had a creative thought in thirty years."

He drooled. "Fuck. You."

"Fuck you Georgie. Go sleep it off."

He stared at me, I stared back. A minute passed, then two. Neither of us blinked. Eventually he turned away mumbling and huffing to himself and disappeared.

Staggering, swallowed by the night.

A Disturbing Dream 14

I'm sick. I'm riding my motorcycle down a long dark road. I'm cold and shaking and hollow. The wind shield is broken and jagged like the jaw of some child's nightmare. I'm fleeing from something, racing through damp fog, throttle fully engaged but still asking the bike for more, escaping. I'm frantic and desperate and only think of speed. The headlight is dim and I see nothing past a few feet of tarmac. The road is empty.

There was some kind of accident. At a hospital or laboratory. I have no white blood cells, no immunities. As I tear through the night I can feel various viruses peel off and latch on to my hobbled frame. I think it's like AIDS but it's not. It was some experiment, some experiment gone wrong.

I get weaker, I cough up black sludge. I think faster gotta go faster I think I can outrun this thing at the same time I think there is no way I can outrun this thing. I know I am going to die, wracked by diseases which a child can normally fight off. I can feel microscopic things squirming and biting and wriggling inside me, my muscles loose strength, I loose will.

I ask the bike for more. I plunge on. Desperate and alone.

A Disturbing Dream 13

I walk in to a concrete basement or warehouse type structure. There are two men walking behind me who I don't look at. They are hulking and faceless. They are watching to make sure I do what I am suppose to do.

In the middle of the bare room there is a black trunk. Inside the black trunk there is a man. He has been inside the trunk for 2 days. I am expected to kill this man, it is my friend Eli.

I undo the catches on the trunk and Eli tumbles out. He is dirty, his beard is long, and he is skeletal. He looks at me with vacate eyes, resigned and unafraid.

The two men behind me get closer. Crowd me from behind but I don't look back. The room gets thick with sweat and the concrete warms.

I am suppose to kill my friend, that's what is expected, to beat him to death.

I reach down and grab him and shove him back in the trunk, the only thing I can think of to delay what seems to be inevitable.

My two shadows escort me out, down a hall, to my own much smaller concrete room lit by a sallow fluorescent. I sit on the floor. The door is shut and locked. I have bought myself another day.

A Disturbing Dream 12

I'm in a secret room. It's in Chloe's new apartment but it's not her apartment. The room is boxy, yellow, and empty. She's sewing my eyes open. Next she is sewing my joints and limbs to little nooks and pulleys in the walls. From some unseen place she operates a machine that makes me dance like a puppet. There's a trap door in the floor. I know, even though I don't know how I know, that some time soon I will be lowered into the room below and be made to dance, recite, or perform in some way.

My appendages are pulled about, I climb the walls, flip, flop, somersault, and jive. A doorbell rings and everything stops. The strings fall off and I exit out to the sidewalk. Chloe calls after me "Come back! I'm having people over!"

I call over my shoulder "Not today."

A Disturbing Dream 11

I have had a reoccurring dream for the past year, between two and four times a month. The basic idea of the dream never changes but the circumstances and locations are always different.

I have to go back to high school and retake one or more classes. Usually they are biology, chemistry or physics classes. It may sound relatively mundane but there's an oppressive sense of panic and desperation in the dream.

Sometimes I'm in my former high school or middle school but most of the time I'm in some huge weird conglomeration of all schools that I've ever been to or heard of.

I'm usually lost and late for class. I'm always my age so I'm a decade older then the oldest students.

Almost always the material being presented is miles over my head which invariably makes me incredibly frustrated and/or depressed. Many times I get kicked out of class and wander the halls looking in to classrooms trying to gain entrance, to learn something, to have some purpose.

Other times I'm at my childhood home and I'm late for class. I feel like a real bum at 28 being late for biology. I show up late and get hall-swept and end up spending the whole day in detention with students and a teacher who's younger than I am.

Often times I'm in the main office getting directions to my classes from a secretary. She outlines a route on a map which I immediately forget, she gives me my schedule which I immediately lose, I wander the halls aimlessly looking in at classrooms full of smart kids I have nothing in common with. I don't fit in and I never will.

Out of place, out of time.

A Disturbing Dream 10

I'm at an outdoor music festival. It's grunge or punk or something. It's in a valley in a state park and the site is ringed by trees. The crowd is filled with people wearing dirty jeans and t-shirts. And for some reason everyone has brought their dogs. There are as many dogs as people. I brought my dog Pepper with me, Pepper's is a 14 year old excitable beagle, and I can't find her.

I'm walking around through a bunch of my fellow attendees who are significantly rougher than me. As I go through the crowd I'm getting more and more anxious and scared. I call her name and then start to shout it. There's tons of dogs, some of them beagles, and there's a good amount of fights between them. I feel like I'm about to cry so I make my why to the bathrooms in order to do it privately.

In one last ditch effort I whistle as loud and long as I can. (I can't whistle in real life) Pepper scampers up to me favoring one of her back legs, I'm overcome with joy. It looks like she's hurt and I lean down and take her in my arms. She licks my hands, my neck, and my face. She looks at me and grins her dog grin, takes a deep breath, and sighs. As she lets out the sigh she starts to shake. After the breath has completely left her she lies in the crook of my arm limp and still. She's just died. All the sorrow and fear in me is released, I look up into the dappled sunlight, and let out a long cry as tears begin to flood down my cheeks.

I awoke.

Pepper was put to sleep almost two years ago. She had been battling cancer for the previous three. I never got to say good bye. She was a great dog: beautiful, energetic, and loving.

A Disturbing Dream 9

I'm running down a dark cavernous tunnel. It's cold. I'm chasing Punam. She's a ways ahead of me but I can just barely see her in the gloom. She's running from something. It could be me or something behind me which I haven't seen. I don't know. I don't think she knows I'm behind her.

The chase goes on for what seems like a long long time. I try to increase my speed but when I do she seems to match it. The tunnel never turns but seems to get wider then narrow then wide again. Eventually I look down and, not looking at her, charge ahead. And I catch up to her. I reach out my hand to stop her.

And turn her around.

It's not her its someone else.

A stranger.

The woman throws her arms around me and starts kissing my neck.

I'm dumbfounded.

A cold wind pushes on my back and makes me sway.

I awoke.

Haint

lurid darkness
coalesces
into fears
the mind possess

hidden horrors
deeply buried
spring to life
sleeping wearied

memories
invade the brain
untruths convincing
a nightmare sane

dormant dread
potential lows
ooze into shadows
of dream flow

awaken now
the shade recedes
forget about
the undone deeds.

A Disturbing Dream 8

I'm a camp counselor again. My old boss has assembled all the best counselors from my seven years at Camp Conestoga for one all-star summer. The facility has been expanded and upgraded considerably since I was last employed there. All this is internal logic which I understand instantly when the dream starts. I'm chastising one of my former campers Aaron. I'm my current age, he hasn't aged at all.

I'm scolding him for not participating and ignoring the instructions of another counselor. He's in turns not responding, sassing, and attempting to walk away. It goes on for a while but I can see it's not getting through. I get really aggravated and say "OK. The hard way."

I pick Aaron up and put him under my arm. The camp lodge is at the top of a large hill and I take off running down it. My intent is to scare Aaron into obedience. I'm going pretty fast and then I go head first down a path which was turned into a mud slide. We gain speed. At the end of the slide there's the start of a zip line. I launch us from the slide to the zip line accelerating to a very dangerous speed. The zip line ends at the bottom of the hill into a large pond. At the end of the line I use the momentum to propel us further into the air and grab a vine hanging from a tree and swing the entire length of the pond ending up on the top of the water fall that feeds the pond. I run across an unsteady rock bridge which crosses the top of the falls and finally stop.

I look down at my arm and Aaron isn't there. I panic. I must have dropped him at some point. I dive from the falls into the pond and swim towards the beach where some campers are lounging. I shout. I search the waters for a while and solicit the help of the near by campers. We find nothing.

I retrace my steps as meticulously as I can but I find no trace of Aaron. I start to feel really guilty. I become convinced he's dead some where. I spend the rest of the afternoon looking for him but I come up empty handed. I make my way back to the lodge and there he is.

Me: Aaron! You scared me half to death!
Aaron: I slipped out in the mud. I'm a slick little pig. Oink!
Me: Aaron, listen buddy. I'm sorry I tried to scare you but you need to participate ok?
Aaron: Some of the kids don't like me and I don't like them. They pick on me.
Me: Listen buddy, I hear ya. I get that sometimes too. But instead of talking back to Dominique if something bothers you I need you to tell her or tell me what's really going on. OK?
Aaron: OK.
Me: I know it's hard buddy. It's hard to tell people what we feel. But you know what?
Aaron: What?
Me: It's always better if we do. All us counselors are here to help. And everyone is here to have some fun. You like fun right?
Aaron: Oink!
Me: Me too. You wanna shoot a quick round of archery?
Aaron: Oink!

I awoke.

I dreamt my aunt was still alive

By Chloe Riley

I dreamt my aunt was still alive. Her and my uncle had moved into an apartment right next to my cousin. Only it was like a fun house apartment with really steep slanted floors. My sisters and I were running around the apartment and it was only when I ran back to my aunt and uncle to tell them I liked the place that I remembered my aunt was dead. I said to her, “Oh, I forgot, you’re dead.” And she looked at me and kind of shrugged.

In real life – not the dream anymore – I just interviewed an undertaker who owns the oldest funeral home in the city. He lives above the funeral home in the same apartment his grandfather lived in when he took care of the dead. We were talking about the importance of wakes. Back before the 1950's, wakes used to go for three days. After the 50's, it went down to two days and now of course it’s just the one. The undertaker told me the reason it used to be three was to help the living mourn. And by mourn, he meant, help them believe the person was really dead.

“If they didn’t believe grandpa was dead on Tuesday, they sure believed it on Thursday,” he said.

Back in the day, when his dad was the undertaker, my undertaker was just a kid wandering through someone’s wake during the summer, watching the family mourn over a body that was basically melting while smelling salts were passed around to dim the stench.

Later he said to his dad, “Dad, why do we do this to people? Why do we put them through this?”

His dad said, “Because it’s a natural process and they need to see it to move on with their lives.”

I never got to see my aunt’s body. She had cancer on and off for six years, and by the end, her body had shrunken to a Gollum-like state. I saw her like this before she died and while it was jarring, it was still her in there. Still with her cute button nose and expressive eyes and always with her humor.

Instead of a wake, we went to a “memorial” at my cousin’s house and I remember thinking it felt weird and forced and that something was missing. Or maybe it was that a couple of things were missing. The body, and our chance to touch it and kiss it and send it off into the great beyond – and the undertaker, that River Styx man who walks farther with the dead than most of us ever will. 

I asked the undertaker, “How do you deal with the dead?”

He said, “I don’t think I consciously deal with them. I go back there and do what I have to do. You may go through a whole day not thinking of your mortality. Well, I see my mortality everyday.”

I may go whole days without thinking of my mortality, but it’s certainly hard to control that old subconscious at night.

(Pencil drawing inside the oldest funeral home in Chicago)

A Disturbing Dream 7

I'm walking into a condo that has been retrofitted like a dorm. It's in Chicago. I'm with fourteen other twenty somethings and we all choose bunks. We're in a cycling competition. The following morning we have three days to bike one thousand miles. We've been picked at random and our participation is not negotiable. There is an unnamed prize for winning and some unnamed penalty for not finishing the race or finishing over the set time limit. No one states this information explicitly it seems that I know this information going in.

Everyone starts unpacking their bags and repacking smaller back packs to use for the race. There's is a lot of excitement and jocularity between the men and women I'm with which I'm excluding myself from. I'm packing granola bars, dried fruit, beef jerky, a camera, and an audio recorder. I have no desire to win and I have no doubt that I will finish the race under time. I'm actually looking forward to staying up all night biking, testing the limits of my endurance. I plan on documenting as much of the race as I can because the particulars of the race have never been made public.

Right when I've finished packing another competitor comes up to me. He's tall, lanky, and well muscled. He looks like a cyclist.

Jack: You better watch your ass out there on the rode.
(At this point all the other competitors are looking at us, I don't really care about the school yard antics, I get the feeling everyone else is more into the hierarchy of this situation then I am.)
Me: I'm sorry?
Jack: It's a long race. People get hurt. Some die.
Me: Well...you know what they say. We all gotta go sometime, just a question of when.
Jack: I'm winning this thing. No one's stopping me.
Me: Good luck, friend.

We stare at each other for a while and then he storms off. Time passes, everyone's going to bed. I can't sleep. Eventually it starts to get lighter out. Pre-dawn. I see Jack out the window making his way to the garage. After a couple minutes the garage opens and he rides out on his bike. I yell to wake everyone up and we all scramble to get on the road.

I'm in a gas station. It's 50 hours into the trip and I've stopped to use the bathroom and to buy food. I feel like a zombie. I feel like my body is caught in jello. It's hard to move and I can only do so slowly. There are two other competitors in line in front of me. The door opens, a bell rings, Jack is standing there with a shotgun. It's obvious fatigue has had an effect on him. He labors to raise the gun. Feeling shoots back into me and I lunge.

I awoke.

A Disturbing Dream 6

I'm getting married. I'm in a hotel lobby outside the ballroom where the ceremony and reception will take place. A lot of friends, relatives, and people I've never seen before are there. I'm frantic, I don't know who I'm getting married to. My dad comes up to me and tells me I have to get married. He's made some contract with someone that is only sealed when I get married. He won't tell me if it's a guy or girl. I look for Punam and I can't find her and for some reason I know its not her I'm getting married to. I panic. I see three well dressed men in white suits drinking by the bar and I become convinced I will be married to one of them.

I put on my tux which is all black and western styled. I think if I have to get married this is the best thing I could get married in. I have an idea. I can't get married if I'm already married. I go back out into the milling crowd and try to find a friend to get married to. Moments before I saw a bunch of familiar faces but now I can't find anyone I know. I start sprinting through the crowd, running into people, sweating and panicking.

At the end of the hall I see my high school girlfriend who I haven't seen in six years. She's married.

HSGF: Looking for someone?
Me: Yeah. I need to get married.
HSGF: You're about to.
Me: I don't know who it is. I'm looking for someone I know.
HSGF: Now you know how it feels. Enjoy.
Me: What?
HSGF: (points) It's starting.

The ceremony has started and the bride is walking down the aisle. I'm somewhat relieved it's a woman but I don't know what to do, I'm tempted to run. Someone grabs me and I'm being man handled toward the front of the room. I'm deposited at the alter. The bride is lifting up her veil.

I awoke.

A Disturbing Dream 5

I'm in Japan. I'm incarcerated in a fortified mansion with 50 or so follow inmates. I'm the only white person and English speaker in the structure. Everyone speaks Japanese and I'm unable to understand anything that is said. Although the mansion is lavish our mobility and the things we can do are limited.

I have a friend. He's a young 17 or 18 year old Japanese boy. We walk around the common area communicating with basic sign language. I know that he has a family outside that is in some kind of trouble. We interact with other people trying to solicit someone who can get a message outside. We talk to an old man who indicates he can get a message to my friends family. I am the designated lookout as this meeting is held.

Time passes. We play ping-pong at which my friend beats me heartily. After a meal of rice, which we all eat in the common room, cross-legged on the floor, we return to our rooms. There are guards waiting for us at the door to ours. They begin to take my friend away. To be tortured, I know without having to be told, for his attempt at trying to communicate with the outside. A despair grips me. I know I have no one outside counting on me or waiting for my return. I get the attention of the head guard and indicate I will take my friends place. I will endure his punishment for him. He thinks and nods, this is an acceptable replacement.

As I'm escorted towards the torture room a hush falls on all the inmates. They look down, avoiding eye contact. I look back and glimpse my friend briefly as he is shoved into our room.

I enter a room with a large roaring fire in a fire place. There are two wooden poles fixed to the ground about two feet away from the blaze. My shirt is taken off and neatly folded on a table. I'm tied to the poles facing the fire. I hear one of the guards pick something up. Then the experimental crack of a whip. I wait. I feel wind on my back then a streak of pain.

I awoke.