kate e macneill

dreams.

it’s the mornings in which they are fragments that are the most bothersome.

slices of faces,
splashes of touch,
shades of light

linger & intrude into my waking hours, sparked by words & noises, as if my day has been specifically designed to force me to piecemeal remember.

we can talk about the ever-present present, but when invaded like this, it quickly becomes the ever-present almost. the moment while passing a cigarette where the holder is uncertain if the receiver has control of the flame yet and hesitates. limbo. almost. where. don’t wanna burn the house down. don’t wanna drop it in the snow.

the dream fragments are statements of impossibility with no narrative. they attach themselves to short term memories like barnacles on the underside of the ship. others become present who were not, could not be present. things were said that would never be said, cannot be said.

the daylight is spent sorting through memory and dream. dissecting. naming. compartmentalizing. retelling the truth to myself. remaking it real.

there are times i ponder what this process will be like when i am in the final third of my life, instead of the first. will i have established a reliable mechanism for determining reality? is this a skill i can master? or will i slowly slip further and further from it, my dreams & days becoming interchangeable, a cohesive psychic narrative that follows the sun, unbeknownst to anyone but myself? if they knew, would they think me mad?

do you remember?

[trigger warning: flashbacks, sexual assault, denial, ptsd, fear, therapy]

did i tell you? i stopped dreaming for a year.

right after it happened, i dreamt of seductions. my mind trying to fill in the blanks of what i did not remember from that night. of what did not make any sense.

my body was bruised for weeks while those dreams that simultaneously disgusted me involuntarily turned me on repeated themselves over and over and over again. i found myself wanting to throw my body down staircases while i was awake.

then one night, i found myself conversing with my three best friends (who i didn’t recognize). we were arguing about something, two of them trying to convince me to go back and see a therapist, and one just making fun of the entire situation. halfway through the dream, i realized i was speaking to my unconscious. and my unconscious was made up of three hilarious and geeky and beautiful gay teenage boys. of course, i thought.

they kept telling me, ‘you can’t figure this out by yourself.’ i kept saying, ‘figure out WHAT?’ and they would say, ‘EXACTLY.’

i didn’t listen to them. and then i stopped dreaming altogether, and didn’t even notice. so i danced, and drank, and did the best i could. i do see that i did the best i could have done.

i didn’t make an appointment at the sexual assault centre until a year had passed, and i had successfully flunked out of school and destroyed my body, the two things i am so desperate to keep together, (the things that are within my power to keep safe, unlike my friends, lovers, family). i almost lost them, so something had to break.

i started saying it out loud, and with every affirmative head nod from a friend, i grew stronger. the therapist i began to see reiterated the validity of my experience, and i was given back the ability to feel anger, and the ability to forgive.

and that’s when i started dreaming again.

dreams

we crash a carnival and dance a tango for a crowd in a raucous alleyway party. there is applause, and i am wearing a dress that keeps twirling one direction while you spin me another. someone places a flower in my teeth. i realize your footing & hold on me are quick and sure; i have had enough zinfandel to swiftly melt alongside your movements.

we hold hands, wander up & down the concrete stairs of the town, fortune tellers & carnies on every street corner. i avoid the stares & knowing smiles of the former; you banter loudly with the latter.

we come to dine at the long table in the circus tent. we are joined by friends & lovers. it is a joyous occasion and perhaps a wedding.

we all keep laughing as slowly each guest is soundlessly plucked from where they sit by small winged white & pink monkey sasquatches with crystal talons. i am the only one who notices. i grab your hand when i see them eyeing your hat. it is unsaid but you trust me.

we run through the busy streets, and a warehouse looms at the bottom of the hill beside the ocean. train tracks run through it. inside, massive canvases hang from chains at right angles, each painted a different shade of blue and draped in beads of glass & shell.

we hear a train coming, and you stand in front of me and place my hands over your ears while you cover my own. we laugh & kiss as the train speeds by, blowing dust between our eyelashes and the world is complete silence. we feel the vibrations & wind, but hear no whistle, no rumblings.

we uncover our ears and sound returns; the train wails fading in the distance, the clinking of glass and shell against wooden canvases and chains are the only noises. slowly, they slow.

you are standing in front of my favourite shade of blue and you blend into the ocean behind the canvas, the sandy fleck in your eye a life boat.

we are safe for now.

dreams.

the children have the faces i see in the photos. 

one might be smiling.

the others are caught up in language.

i try to learn their names, to keep them from my abstractions.

but i do not have the words to recognize these ghosts.

dreams.

it is 2030 and i work in a library in the basement of this huge mall/airport/subway/university/theatre/street complex that is recurring in my dreams.

there is a prison below us, and sometimes, prisoners are given day passes to come to the library. i look forward to these days. 

today is a visitation day. they stroll out of the metropolis-esque elevator, and the guard gives them wristbands to track their movements throughout the library. i watch one man walk towards me at the desk. he is not someone i know. he is tall and broad shouldered, wearing no jacket, and his scarifications are visible on his shoulders and chest. he has shorn light hair, and pale pale blue eyes. and those eyes stare at me. 

i realize we are in love. immediately with no words. no hands. just a look and a recognition of the other.

strange things happen, the prisoners attempt an escape (it works sometimes if they are a low security risk), i willingly go with to try and help, we take refuge at my childhood home, there is a dramatic kiss in the middle of the snowy road under the streetlight with security teams on either end of us when he decides to give himself up to save the others. we know he will not be allowed back into the library. it is so sad. i watch them take him away from me.

this has happened before, and will again. and every time i realize they erase my memories of him to try and control the population. but we keep finding each other. and i keep remembering. and his scars. one for every time they make him forget.

sleep.

it is the dreams that keep me
there, unconscious, in space
between stimuli
& response.

when i finally pull away,
and there is a facebook
message from a lover
to discuss lunch or last night,
there is a tin of chicken
for the cat’s paw in my face,
these fragments of some
reality can be
haunting, back
& forth.

there are triggers
in the daylight, time
to flicker, hold
still. keep
away, hold
on to this
material, cover
up the tracks of
those dead
& ghost.

they say:
stay; keep us
company. we are alone
& the little white pills
make us dizzy.
& unintrusive.

dreams

some things you remember a certain way. correlations in memory that didn’t actually happen.

like my running away from home as connected to when my father’s purple martins stopped roosting in the house he built for them in the backyard.

these events are unrelated, but i dream, and there they are, together.

but in the dream, it is me returning home, and the martins have also returned (although this did not, would not happen; the trees in the backyard are now too tall for the birds’ taste; they prefer to be far aloft, the highest point in a landscape).

but in the dream, i look for my father at his bedroom window, watching the birds as he used to. i want to introduce him to my new lover with whom i have arrived. the vhs camera is on, pointed out the window, recording the comings and goings of the birds as it used to, but my father is not there.

i look in the kitchen, where the breadmaker is on, dough rising, but my mother is not present. i lead my lover out into the backyard, with the tangles of apple trees and morning glory vines, the sun and moon weather vane, and imposing conifers. my mother’s garden still takes up half the yard, and among its steady rows of stakes and twine, its peas and strawberries and asparagus are ready to be picked for the evening meal. she is not there either.

i explain the flight habits of the purple martins to my lover confidently, remembering facts i had forgotten, but know in my bones. i feel the patterns of the garden in my blood, pulse racing.

i am strangely anxious about the absence of my family. i tell myself they are just out for a walk with the dog, as they often are.

the entire house and yard seem to be waiting, anticipating an arrival, an ending.

dreams

last night was full of yelling. 

previous night had a bit more variety:

1) i in no way had a dream in which i took dream marksman lessons in order to dream off a certain dream political leader who likes dream sweater vests and dream kittens. with a dream sniper rifle. in his dream head.

2) i also in no way had my next dream be about seducing & mutilating the man who assaulted me last year.

3) dream night ended off with a very pleasurable and adorable encounter with two beautiful british boys in lake superior provincial park campground.

also something strange about an alternate life where i get a studio in a giant old warehouse building occupied by a bunch of middle aged artists who adopt me. i think they were actually ghosts and i was actually totally nuts. it was comforting.