the shape water takes
Sep. 3rd, 2015 06:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
anonymousblackin the street in the dark looking at a house with one light on.
on a train in the night with no memory of why i am on a train.
lying in a canoe filling slowly with water looking up at the blank sky.
there’s water, there’s always water. there’s water where there’s supposed to be water and there’s water where there’s not supposed to be water. houses of water. water in the stairwells, water from the ceiling, water where the floor should have been. roads and rooms and roars of water. gatherings on the deep seas. i’m ankle deep for days except when i’m up to my waist. i don't know what they were thinking, designing the building like that. a couple nights ago i dreamed i was staying in maine again and our cabin gradually blended into the shoreline, walls becoming boulders and tide pools, the water luminous and blue green below, the tide rushing up to meet me, the waves in the distance rising up high. this morning a full-moon beach shore initiation suddenly turned into the swim unit. i know what it’s about. i’ll even think, this is about emotion, these are usually emotional topics and dynamics, if not something that soaked me through in the recent past then something swelling up in the horizon. i know what it’s about, but i never know what it means. you’d think it wouldn’t escape me at this point, but it always does.
boxes of audio cassettes. a warehouse full. i want to listen to all of them. i listen to one, layers of recordings over older recordings cutting away from each other, obliterating each other, strange artifacts creating a new experience entirely. i think, this could be something. the tape jumbles. i snap it out of the deck. instead of magnetic tape, water pours out of the casing. this seems odd, somehow, i think. the water rises all around me.
there are mazes and monsters. riddles and restless souls. atomic bombs and slow contamination. there’s always someone watching from the periphery.
is it you?
i’m trying to warn people or i’m not listening to reason. the power went out. water’s running out of the outlets. everything in the storage locker has gone back to nature except for his gun. i run away from the soldiers, not wanting to be saved by a lie. i’m pregnant and scrubbing out mugs for my college food service, white water rushing beneath the grate. i walk out of the dressing room in a trance and perform the ceremony without preparation. all my teeth fall out. i salvage, i salve. i find a lot of flowers. i try to figure out how i’ll have enough to eat. and then at the end of it i look up in the sky and there’s the funnel cloud, headed right for us. again. again. again.
just the that stubborn residue of dreaming, on waking from a dream, this sense that everything in the dream seems so much more urgent than anything i could possibly remember from the dream turns out to be: every simple distinction wrestled from a dreamer’s oblivion! we cling to it, no matter how trivial, we define ourselves with it, like a college sophomore who likes a book or commits to a dietary choice for philosophical reasons: it is who we are. it is so important. we must describe it back as frequently as possible on threat of losing who we understand ourselves to be. like dropping a stone back onto a pile of stones, trying not to blink, trying not to lose that exact form, committing ourselves heart and soul to the rock we just had in our hands, you know, it’s
maybe it’s the dream struggling into being, struggling into existence, fighting to be acknowledged? maybe the dream is another part of who we are, something we need to remember or anticipate, something we need to accept, something we need to grieve?
in the dream p. turns to me, all of a sudden. i hadn’t realized he was in the room. i panic, knowing this moment is a gift, knowing i’d been given this moment for a reason, knowing i only had a couple minutes; i had no idea what to do with it. never one for grand declarations anyway, he shakes his head. “you sure are into some weird shit, judy,” he tells me.
“you’re hardly one to talk,” i say, and wake at his appreciative laugh.
on a train in the night with no memory of why i am on a train.
lying in a canoe filling slowly with water looking up at the blank sky.
there’s water, there’s always water. there’s water where there’s supposed to be water and there’s water where there’s not supposed to be water. houses of water. water in the stairwells, water from the ceiling, water where the floor should have been. roads and rooms and roars of water. gatherings on the deep seas. i’m ankle deep for days except when i’m up to my waist. i don't know what they were thinking, designing the building like that. a couple nights ago i dreamed i was staying in maine again and our cabin gradually blended into the shoreline, walls becoming boulders and tide pools, the water luminous and blue green below, the tide rushing up to meet me, the waves in the distance rising up high. this morning a full-moon beach shore initiation suddenly turned into the swim unit. i know what it’s about. i’ll even think, this is about emotion, these are usually emotional topics and dynamics, if not something that soaked me through in the recent past then something swelling up in the horizon. i know what it’s about, but i never know what it means. you’d think it wouldn’t escape me at this point, but it always does.
boxes of audio cassettes. a warehouse full. i want to listen to all of them. i listen to one, layers of recordings over older recordings cutting away from each other, obliterating each other, strange artifacts creating a new experience entirely. i think, this could be something. the tape jumbles. i snap it out of the deck. instead of magnetic tape, water pours out of the casing. this seems odd, somehow, i think. the water rises all around me.
there are mazes and monsters. riddles and restless souls. atomic bombs and slow contamination. there’s always someone watching from the periphery.
is it you?
i’m trying to warn people or i’m not listening to reason. the power went out. water’s running out of the outlets. everything in the storage locker has gone back to nature except for his gun. i run away from the soldiers, not wanting to be saved by a lie. i’m pregnant and scrubbing out mugs for my college food service, white water rushing beneath the grate. i walk out of the dressing room in a trance and perform the ceremony without preparation. all my teeth fall out. i salvage, i salve. i find a lot of flowers. i try to figure out how i’ll have enough to eat. and then at the end of it i look up in the sky and there’s the funnel cloud, headed right for us. again. again. again.
just the that stubborn residue of dreaming, on waking from a dream, this sense that everything in the dream seems so much more urgent than anything i could possibly remember from the dream turns out to be: every simple distinction wrestled from a dreamer’s oblivion! we cling to it, no matter how trivial, we define ourselves with it, like a college sophomore who likes a book or commits to a dietary choice for philosophical reasons: it is who we are. it is so important. we must describe it back as frequently as possible on threat of losing who we understand ourselves to be. like dropping a stone back onto a pile of stones, trying not to blink, trying not to lose that exact form, committing ourselves heart and soul to the rock we just had in our hands, you know, it’s
THE NARCISSISM OF FINE DISTINCTIONSwhich personality type we are [INFJ! 4w5! god don’t ask about subtypes!] * what we eat * what we don’t eat * what television shows we like * why we don’t like this specific television show * the many ways in which we are a better person than any other person in the general vicinity but also how we are very humble * what we write in open letters to public figures who will never read them * where we buy things * where we won’t buy things * spirituality! or a lack thereof * politics like fingernails scraping a chalkboard * why our particular variety of hatred and exclusion is not really so bad * why we are magically exempt from the repercussions of not thinking about social issues we have ignored and denied our entire lives * which social networking sites we don’t use * how totally weird we are * how our personal weirdness is actually weird and yours is not * and why of course always why of course
maybe it’s the dream struggling into being, struggling into existence, fighting to be acknowledged? maybe the dream is another part of who we are, something we need to remember or anticipate, something we need to accept, something we need to grieve?
in the dream p. turns to me, all of a sudden. i hadn’t realized he was in the room. i panic, knowing this moment is a gift, knowing i’d been given this moment for a reason, knowing i only had a couple minutes; i had no idea what to do with it. never one for grand declarations anyway, he shakes his head. “you sure are into some weird shit, judy,” he tells me.
“you’re hardly one to talk,” i say, and wake at his appreciative laugh.
