June 9, 2003
Apple Cider Nightmare
In my dream, we were barreling down the street, too fast, and I begged you to slow down. Ahead, a Wizard-of-Oz-esque tornado swirled, menacing, slow. The truck skidded to the side of the road, and the two of us went ducking into a ditch so conveniently located alongside the street. The wind was howling, and within it I heard the wailing of a child. I realized, in a moment, that the cry emanated from my own throat.
You did not seek to cover me with your body, but lay near me in the ditch. Behind me. Our bodies were not whipped about, but the tornado passed over us, again and again. I felt wood, or glass, bite into my cheek, and I sought, with futility, to bury my face in my arms.
I did not want to look away. And I knew in my dream that I was longing to gaze upon that which would be my demise, and that I wanted one last look at you, before I died.
I wonder what made you reach for me this morning. Was it guilt from the angry words uttered last night, left unresolved as you dropped easily off to sleep? Was it a desire to touch my skin in the morning, to let my back and breasts be the first thing welcomed by your palms at the start of the day?
Was it to quiet me, who had not woken up angry and ready to flinch from your touch, to snarl, to demand an argument? I did none of these things. I let you touch me, and kiss my hair, and curl up alongside me a moment before you prepared yourself for work.
I always lay in bed, listening to you shower. When I hear the rush of the water die off I know you will soon be opening the bathroom door, hastening to your dresser for socks and underwear. I watch you dress, all but your shirt, which you leave for last, after shaving and the brushing of teeth and the flattening of hair.
These things I do not watch. I can hear the sound of your razor cutting across your skin, the water running as you clean the blade. The clink of your toothbrush exiting its holder, the coarse sound of it against your teeth.
You come to the side of the bed, then, to the closet. Painstakingly, a choice is made between this gray shirt and that navy shirt and this other gray shirt and yet another navy shirt. You deposit your keys and your mints and your change and your lighter into various pockets, last your wallet (into the side cargo pocket if those happen to be the pants you are wearing, into the back pocket if they are not). It is now, then, that you sit down on the edge of the bed, and remark how tired I look, and give me a smile and lean down to rest your head in the shallow between my shoulder and neck, or, in some cases, against my chest. My arms go around you and I can think only of the days we used to share, filled with nothing, only eachother, when we watched cartoons and drove around aimlessly and tried in vain to decide upon somewhere to eat, inevitably landing at the Burlington Skyline.
You work seven days a week. You ask me to drive you to work and to rub your feet and to make you tea.
I should learn to hide my eagerness.
I do not understand you. I do not understand how I am with you, how you are with me.
Love is an excuse. We are capable of hurt because we can love. It does not heal all wounds, and instead opens up the opportunities for new ones. I am exposed by love, abused by it. I do all things willingly and with this desperate desire to be everything that you want... when in truth, sometimes you do not want. You want Mike, and obliging silence, and the comfort of not having to comfort.
You let me fall asleep with the stain of your undeserved anger still upon me. A small word grows to grand proportions when left unresolved, when no apologies are made.
I know that you love me. I can see it in your eyes and your small gestures and your fine sentiments. What kind of love is this, though, that needs so much self?
I don't ask of you. Yet you shrink as though I did.
In my dream, I gazed at the truck. Perhaps you were at my side, perhaps you were not. The tires were flattened, shredded, loose and creeping across the road as though melted. I was unharmed, but what sort of unnatural fire had blazed here...?
astera at 1:34 p.m.