Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Slick oily and tilted, the floor in my dream was spread out like a slanted ocean. Its surface ran away from my eyes until the darkness blended with emptiness above me. I was not warm or cold or screaming or wet. I was sliding.


A hole in the distance sat in my path. Scrambling and panicking and scrambling I glided along on fingers and knees and elbows that will never stop me.


That's my dream. Another dream is lit well enough for me to see the attic floor, also tilted, and aiming me toward a railing. I slide. I am a child. A little girl. I will slip between the rails and drop down steep stair that I climbed a minute ago.


I remember a denim outfit I wore when I was a kid. Dark blue with a farmer's bib front and ruffled suspenders. That is what I wore one Sunday morning as I fed ducks and despite Dad's warning I fell in.


I am petting Lily and my mind slipped out one of the cracks like smoke and drifted. The thoughts felt well-worn but forgotten. My mind is a closet filled with old shoes -- some are side by side and ready to wear while others are upside down or mismatched. I don't know who, other than neglect, has been in here creating disarray. Something that lives in the back of my mind rummages through here infrequently to relocate a favorite leather shoe that I wore to a first day of school, stuffing it beneath black leather sandals that I wore once and hated.


Closets. People hide precious things in closets as if its the unofficial trove of memories and secrets and things that might be dangerous or damning in the wrong hands. Hiding in closets everywhere are guns and birthday candles photo albums shoes that fit along with pants that fit, while deep in the back are the bad clothes that we keep in case we're fat skinny lazy or strange again.



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