Dream me
Dream wants to go to the club.
Dream me doesn’t know where she lives.
Dream me thinks we still live in my very first apartment on Vanderbilt Avenue. Dream me has to get back there quickly, because we just remembered I left the cats there alone for all these years—how could I have forgotten? Dream me runs through dream Brooklyn, past bodegas and pizza places, down the hypotenuse of Flatbush Avenue, always at night.
Dream me is in a subway station, on a tall, pitched escalator between subway lines. Dream me is missing the subway. Dream me chases a bus around a parking lot trying not to get left behind. The flight leaves in 40 minutes and dream me hasn’t even packed. Dream me is on the 55th floor, watching planes fall out of the sky.
Dream me turns away from the window and tells herself, I didn’t just see that happen, it was a dream.
Dream me wants the job but knows I’m a joke. Dream me still works at the magazine with the hateful boss. Dream me still works for the internet start-up, but she hasn’t been coming in for the past several years. I can’t explain why.
Dream me is young, I think. Dream me still gets excited about meeting people like they’re going to change her life.
My husband, who doesn’t always exist in dreams, turns into a stranger, sarcastic and cold. Dream me begs him for forgiveness for things I didn’t do, sobbing and heaving; dream me is sick with despair, because I know that he’s already moved on to someone new. Or: dream me is buttoning up my blouse as I walk through a strange lobby to the exit, having just thrown away nineteen years of strict fidelity in an act I don’t remember.
Now what do I do?, dream me asks herself. We lie, dream me decides. We lie to our husband for the rest of our life.
Dream me is watching a tidal wave the height of a skyscraper coming towards me on the shore. Dream me tries to remember what you’re supposed to do to survive a tidal wave, then realizes, you can’t. Dream me takes in a deep breath and gets ready to die.
Dream me is behind the wheel of a car. I can’t drive so dream me is winging it.
Dream me knows what she wants: to go to the club. Dream me is impatient because it’s taking too long to get to the club. The club is the best party ever and sometimes also a show, where dream me sometimes bluffs through my old material. My friends from high school are at the club, and a boy I loved then is standing with his back to the bar on the balcony at The World on East 2nd Street, waving and smiling. When he hugs me, it’s pure, profound homecoming.
Dream me wants to fuuuuuuuuuuuuck.
Dream me shouldn’t have brought weed with me to a courthouse. Dream me has to go through a metal detector and gets stopped by a cop, an older white man who wants to lock me up. Dream me is in a widowed conference room acting like everything is fine, even as I see the phalanx of agents and officers are walking through the office straight towards us.
Dream me feels too awkward to interrupt my mother and remind her that she’s dead, so dream me just nods and plays along.
Dream me is the passenger in a car going too fast around a banked turn over a body of water. Dream me leans into the turn with my whole body but dream me knows we’re not going to make it. As the car breaks through the guardrails and sails through the air towards the river, I take a big breath and get ready to die.
Dream me runs into the Significant Ex for the first time in over two decades, and thinks I have to play it very cool. Dream me touches him on the arm and says that it was wonderful to see him. Dream me worries that the arm thing was too much. Dream me is miraculously back together with the Significant Ex, and it’s bliss, briefly, until he dumps dream me.
Dream me breaks, screaming and beating my chest, and everyone is repelled as dream me drops to the floor and sobs, humiliated.
Dream me is driven. Dream me is ravenous, walking through a gas station store, filling a cafeteria tray with buffet desserts, ordering a spinach and egg white omelet in a diner. Dream me sorts through vintage clothing at the old Goodwill on Atlantic Avenue—a pink dress, a crochet vest, a soccer jersey. Dream me is definitely going to buy these overalls.
In my waking life, I’m jealous of dream me. How deeply she feels things. How young and hopeful she is. How devoted to her I am, carrying this dream girl with me through the decades. I’m 51 years old, but dream me still lives in Brooklyn, thrifts for overalls, and desperately needs to get to the club because love is there waiting for her, his back against the bar, and when I see him, his embrace will be everything I’ve dreamed.
(2020)