Chase is dead, but leaning against the side of the stall. Had he stiffened there? Rigor mortis? Was he dead? Was I too late? The prospect of him being alive and needing intervention that only I was there to give but was completely unable to give was more terrifying than the prospect of me having to tell Rhonda that he was dead. I walk up to him and put my hand in front of his nostrils to make sure he is not breathing. He jolts upright suddenly and changes from a white Arabian into a leopard Appaloosa and begins wildly careening around the stall, and I am swept up onto his back with my hands knotting into his mane and I am stuck and unable to leave as I am feeling my bones breaking as he slams into walls and throws himself into the air screaming in pain. I am yelling at him to stop, stop hurting himself like this, and screaming for Rhonda or Bettina or Tim or someone to come and help but they are all suddenly in front of the stall watching sadly and telling me that there is nothing they can do--I just need to stay with him. They leave and I am stuck on Chase's back as he howls in a way I never want to hear from a horse again and bolts around the stall and I am sobbing on him begging him to stop but irrevocably tangled into him and unable to do anything but scream and scream and scream with him until he dies.
Awaken.
Keyframed
Thursday, June 19, 2014
05/26/14
Karl drives me to my house, but it is an expansive log cabin. He looks at me expectantly, and I realize that we are here to buy him weed. I walk into the kitchen and am blinded by the walls of windows and then Shawn Smith walks out of my mother's room. I whimper softly to myself but boldly go up to him and start taking off my clothes--he will only sell me weed if I sleep with him first. He is a giant man of proportions that I do not understand and his beard is large and he is on top of me and I try to move him further away so I can move and make it enjoyable for myself but he is unmoving and pouring sweat over me and when he is finished I am disturbed and pissed off at Karl. He tells me $70 for 20grams and I nod and take the plastic bag that he hands me. I don't know anything about weed or how much 20 grams is or what it would normally go for, and I am pretty sure the bag just contains five little pieces of broccoli, but I don't want to appear really stupid in from of Shawn now and if Karl had really wanted this to go well then he should have gone himself or given me better instructions. I go back outside and get into Karl's car. I glare at him a bit and we drive off. He will want to sleep with me to make up for this, but I will just stare into the distance in that familiar silence of mine.
Awaken.
Awaken.
Wednesday, May 21, 2014
05/20/14
People are coming in my room (giant, black, wispy bodies with dangerous
limbs) and I can't open my left eye and I wait I wait I wait I can hear
them filling in the hallway and pressing up against my door and there
are too many bodies shoved and crushed against my door and I am trying
to keep my paralyzed eyes open so I have enough time to scream but they
burst through and I know that I will not be able to scream for Benjamin
loud enough before they slit my throat.
Awaken.
Awaken.
04/15/14
We are at Hannah's wedding. I am in my cobalt dress, but the back
plunges all the way down to my tailbone. I am sitting at a table
laughing and trying not to sound to hollow to these people I am
struggling to connect with. Natalie comes over and sits in my lap,
curling into me. I breathe her for a while to feel less sad, but soon
she is gone to congratulate her sister bride. I turn back to the table
of people I could have been family with and then feel a light hand on my
shoulder. I turn to look up at you, who are smiling down gently at me.
"Would you want to dance with me?" I kick off my heels so we are the
same height again, stand up, and you lead me on your arm to the dance
floor. We are far apart at first, and your hand's light touch as it
slides from my waist to my hip sends flames shooting across my skin. A
text sends from my phone to Erik: "I am legitimately happy for the first
time in a very, very long time." The photographer comes near and you
pull me closer; I feel the body heat from you radiate over my skin and I
feel warm in a way I have not been in so very long. My arms dangle
around your neck and my chin is on your shoulder. I feel your beard
hairs tickle my cheek and I grin uncontrollably. You feel my smile and
turn your head slightly to kiss my dimple. The song changes, and we
slide apart and begin dancing wildly. I missed how you looked in your
dress shoes. As we dance I can see us from a distance, and we have
certainly changed. My face is gaunter now, riddled with new, fine lines
from sadness and pain, and even though my eyes sparkle they are
surrounded by those giant sleepless bags that are growing beneath them.
Your shoulders look filled out again, but your belt is pulled tighter
and your stomach is more concave than usual (have you been eating? I
will feed you!). The song ends and I stop to catch my breath, hands on
my hips and laughing. I am so happy, even as I feel the moment ending
and know that you will leave again. You graze my forearm with your
fingers and familiar needles shoot from my nerves and up my spinal cord,
releasing a flood of serotonin. "Do you want to go back to my place?"
you ask and my throat instantly closes up. I narrow my eyes, but your
face is open as it ever has been. "This isn't...sexual or anything,
right?" I ask, and you nod. I am beginning to say "then, yes" but your
hand slides around my waist and pulls me close and the word stops in my
throat as I try not to cry.
I am wearing your pajama pants and your light blue Eisley
shirt. We are in your new apartment. I crawl slowly onto the bed and
stretch out, sore from the dancing. I can feel you staring at my legs,
and you say "I forgot how long they were" when you see me watching your
gaze. You grin and your crows feet appear, causing my heart to catch in
my throat--I loved those most of all. You pat the bed and I slide into
the space between your chest and your arm. I press my cheeks into your
bony, protruding sternum, and soon feel it become soaked with my tears. I
try to wipe them away, but my fingers get lost in memories as soon as I
touch your chest hair and now I am rubbing your chest singing "soft
kitty, warm kitty, little ball of fuuuuur" and you softly laugh before
pulling me closer whispering "hey...hey. Samantha, I am right here" and
you are wiping away my tears. I unfold on you and feel our legs tangle
as your arm is firm against my back, pushing me against you where I need
to be. I fall to sleep, my body growing limp as my face slowly slides
off your chest and my nose is buried on your armpit. Sleep. Sleep. Warm.
Sleep.
I wake up and you are gone? Please, no. NO. I cover
my mouth with my hand as my heart falls into that stillness that has
surrounded me these past months. I still have that sense of peace God
gave me that morning when he told me to keep preparing myself for you,
but it is still surrounded by the empty screaming death that knows I
will never end up with you. And how it screams. I swing my legs off of
your bed, surrounded by the smell of detergent and I know that I will
have to run a very long time if I am ever going to stop crying today. My
feet hit your floor (but whose ship came washed up on whose shore? and
from what ocean floor?) and my body collapses suddenly. At least I was
not in the shower this time. At least I can force myself to stand back
up (oh God, why must I lay in this grave of a body for so long?). I look
back and your bed is dissolving from my tears. I am cold again. No. NO.
In the living room we run into each other. I smell
that you were cooking a Ben Cole breakfast. You didn't leave? I can see
you staring in sadness into the still screams that you see in my eyes as
I feel that flicker of hope and longing that I have come to hate (it
comes all the time, when I think about you, and I have to quench it
because it is false, crazy, all a dream). You open your mouth, hesitant
as I start swaying again, feeling another collapse coming on.
"Samantha..." you say and I swallow a heavy heart knowing that no one
else will ever say my name like that. You kneel down before me and take
my hands. You look up at me. I gaze blankly down. That flicker of hope
is going crazy and my soul is weeping as it tries to put it out (it
never will die down). "Samantha..." you say, grabbing my left hand and
stretching it out. My body catches fire instantly and my vision blurs
and everything everything EVERYTHING is feeling all at once and the
deadness and screaming has given way to something new and alive and the
stones in my eyes are alive with praise and oh GOD I am on fire fire
fire because as you say "...please come home" I see that you put a ring
on me while I slept (you never sold it? YOU NEVER SOLD IT) and it is
black and gold and glistening and perfect and I collapse (but not from
my body locking up in sad, empty deaths--this is me falling open and
everything good is spilling out and into me again and we are breathing
each other OH MY GOD I CAN BREATHE and the air rushes into my lungs and
you were right: I forgot how to breathe). I am in your arms bawling,
bawling, bawling and your warm, strong arms that are enclosing me are
the only things keeping me honest.
Flashbacks. All at once. Tracks and films overlayed.
Every time that you told me that you were going to be the one I woke up
to when I was sixty, every time that you told me you would always be
there for me, every time that you grabbed me by the shoulders and yelled
to me "I CHOSE YOU, SAMANTHA. I CHOOSE YOU EVERY DAY." I believe you. I
believed you. I always believed you. I never believed a day of you
choosing someone else. I always KNEW you would come back to me to finish
living out those promises. I still chose you every day. I did. I did. I
did. I do not know how else to say "I love you." Your skin has had my
name whispered into every inch of it and you have tattooed yourself
across every part of my soul. Every flashback that has haunted me is
stacked upon itself and I see it blossom into fruition. Yes. This is how
it is supposed to be. We choose each other.
"I-" I stammer. "I am not going to give up my
friends or family. I don't believe that. But I have messed up, lover, I
have. Be with me. I promise I will be with you. Always. All ways. Marry
me. I am ready to be home." and we are crying into each other and
laughing and made perfect in each others love and
Awaken.
[[My face is
covered in tears and I bite my pillow trying not to scream out in pain
and my body shivers and quakes and every organ of mine is wrenched in
this familiar loneliness. Why. No. Why do I have dreams like that. Why.
No. It is too real. It is everything that I want. Everything.
Everything. I raise my head (that is now ready for marriage and I HATE
IT WHY DID THAT COME SO LATE) and my vision is streaked with tears and I
look at the clock and I still have hours until my alarm goes off and I
am just choking and weeping and. and. I will never be home. Lover, where
did you go?]]
04/14/14
We are in a sunbaked parking lot, dry heat steaming up from the cracks
in the pavement as the bright bright concrete reflects the glaring sun
into my eyes. I breathe deeply, wishing there was moisture in the air,
before ducking into a large, metal gym. The heat is almost worse inside,
the air staler, but the glare is gone at least. No windows. I hear a
metal cage descend over the building (structural reinforcement?) but
ignore it and push open a series of heavy, hot, metal doors. I finally
find the roller derby game, and drag myself up onto the metal bleachers
which are burning hot, despite being in the shade. I watch with
heavy-lidded eyes. I could do this. Be a roller derby girl. I could.
"THE DOORS ARE LOCKED." I hear a scream. The metal cage. I was so blind.
I see my brother from across the gym--how did he get here? No. God no.
Not Joseph. I run to doors and began delivering blows to the thinnest
section of the thick, hot metal. It does not bend. There is no glare,
because there are no windows. I lift my head, sweat rolling down my neck
and stinging in the creases of my skin. The metal cage will crush us.
Slowly crush the whole gym like a giant wad of paper. Will we all be
forced into the center, alive, pressed together in a giant fleshy,
writhing, sweating, screaming glob of humans before being crushed into
each other to death? Or will some die on the outskirts, crushed in the
folding bleachers? Between doors? Someone shouts "IT GIVES" and we all
start moving towards some doors that have been blown out, letting in the
scalding sun and dusty, heavy air. Some of the kids are in basketball
uniforms and linger in the gym. "Ha, while everyone is out we will stay
in and have a REAL game of basketball." My throat is dry. My eyes are
wet with dried up tears. No liquid, just stinging salt.
"Joseph...please," I choke out, in the most pleading voice I have ever
heard. He looks up, wide-eyed and terrified and begins moving towards me
as I start shaking in relief. We will live to see another day out in
the sun that will burn off our skin. I take his hand. We walk through
the door as I fight the urge to run away screaming. We are free.
Awaken.
Tuesday, April 15, 2014
04/12/14
I am trying to hug Rebecca, but you and Tara are flirting around the
corners of my vision and I cannot stand that. Tara has deer legs and you
are growing antlers and I hate it hate it hate it (this Rush reference
was obviously meant to taunt only me). I leave Rebecca and go to a giant
kiosk lined with swords, and pull down four pairs of weapons. As I pull
them down, the kiosk plays a sound clip, and I realize that these are
weapons from games and movies. I probably would be able to choose better
if I knew enough about games and movies to recognize any of these.
After I strap on my weapons, I throw the first pair of them, swords
curved sharply like scythes (from Zelda?) and they hit the target I was
aiming at and then retract right back to my hands. I am a little
embarrassed--I did not know that they did that. If I had, I probably
would not have selfishly took four pairs of them. Ah well.
Awaken.
Monday, April 7, 2014
04/07/14
I'm in the back pasture of Spirit Reins with Tim, Bettina, and a crazy
wild child. I cannot remember what he was doing that was so awful, but
Tim was just kicking dust and weeding the arena while Bettina cried and
chased him out to a fence where he climbed over it and was escaping
towards the woods. I approached the fence and held out my arms,
whispered something that I wish I could remember, and felt his cold,
dead eyes turn to fixate on me. Bettina was crying because he was lost,
and this devil child crouched in the branches of a tree and stared and
stared and stared. I stood with my arms open, whispering loving words I
was struggling to believe into the silence, and his cold, black eyes
stared back at me from his three year-old body that held too much pain.
He slowly slid through the branches to the end of the fence, and instead
of carefully navigating the barbed wire top, he slowly rolled off of
the branch, closing his eyes, and fell to where he knew my arms would
catch him. I held back a scream, unsure whether I could catch him before
he hit the barbed wire (for I was also busy trying to keep the cows
away who were charging us with scared and frantic screams). I felt his
weight slide into my arms and soon this devil child was nestled against
my torso, arms wrapped around my neck in an embrace, as I took the
stones from his eyes and he fell to sleep.
I was walking along the southern fence trying to take a
picture of what I presumed to be a cow. It had one giant horn on one
side of its head, and its body was like a long sheepdog's and it moved
like an amoeba. It was something from a Miyazaki film and I needed to
show the picture to Elizabeth. Nothing would do it justice though, and I
left with the child still in my arms.
I'm on the beach side, going down an old and rotten
wooden staircase that has been unveiled by the low tide. I stop suddenly
as I see three boys at the bottom of the stair case, posing for their
ideals. Thomas Newman, Garth, and someone I can't remember. "Ah," I
think, "that makes sense that they are friends."
I am back with Tim and Bettina and I am crouched
between a man's legs, sawing off his testicles with a dull, thin rock,
puncturing his penis and making a mangled mess out of his genitals. I
pull back, for he did not notice me, and he is running off down the
hall, naked and screaming for something my body refused to understand. I
turn and see Tim and Bettina holding a small, Asian girl with green in
her hair and large, terrified, beautiful eyes. That was her dad, and he
was looking for her to rape her again. We run through the maze-like
Japanese office until we find him, and begin confronting him in calm,
reasonable words. He understands some of what we say, and calms down and
agrees that what he did and was doing was wrong, and that he will stop.
We turn to leave, and he grabs the girl and begins groping her. He
immediately stops, and begins shaking in fear and rage. "WHERE DID IT GO
WHERE DID IT GO?" he begins shrieking and shrieking and I am holding
Tim and Bettina back with a wry smirk as he begins crying and screaming
because he realized he does not have an erection. The girl is a tiny
doll now and he is frantically rubbing her over his flaccid penis
screaming because he can feel his urges inside of him but now has no
release he can get from her because of me. (and as I watch from my seat
in my lucid dream I roll my eyes, because castration does not affect
your ability to get an erection. although castration with a rock
probably would, considering how awful of a job I did at it.) He throws
her down and runs away screaming, knowing he will never live to his
equine past. I start walking with the girl down the hallway in the other
direction and the man cries out her name right behind us.
I am in an office with Tim and Bettina and they ask,
warily, "She didn't turn around to answer him, did she?" I nod and they
slowly shake their heads, lowering them in sadness. They know. Was I
supposed to have known?
The Asian girl turns around, her dad throws acid in her
face, scowling at her and me before turning and fleeing. The girl turns
slowly around to face me, me who cut off her father's sexual release and
failed to protect her from the acid (am I responsible? why did I
castrate him? i don't believe in that. am I responsible for her face?).
Her face is like melted wax dripping off of a frame made of open,
screaming flesh. Through droops hanging off of patches of vein-pulsing
muscles she slowly raises her gaze (I can only see one eye, the other is
ruined) to look at me with the softest and most defeated sadness. She
would have moved beyond the sexual assault. But now. But now...? This
will be with her forever. Her large, terrified, beautiful eyes are now
flesh pockets of grief and a slow wishing that she was dead instead. Her
appearance is not gross to me, and nothing about this is scary. We
stand in the hallway looking at each other as I wonder how much control I
had over this, how much should I have known before hand, and if there
is anything I can do now? Can I? Or do I just sit with her and wait in
agony as she is forced to live on in a life she never wanted?
Awaken.
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