you are some sort of prince and i sure as hell don't belong

as i approached the line you admired the girl to my right. your friend said no man, it's her, as in me. you said she looks like a vagabond; funny... i was a vagabond. 'exactly.' he said. so i went through line. i stood behind the girl you admired, she was an archer. i quickly made a bow and arrow appear. thought maybe you liked the look of it or something. i was a singleknifeinmybelt kind of gal, not into frills like swords and earrings and other decor (certainly not a pirate like this other girl -who came in cardboard ship- i knew you'd like her because i knew you ended up together. she was clumsy with her sword and almost took out my eye by accident as she walked by.) and they called name after name. may the strongest win. names and more names till all were called and mine was not. i went up to the friend, the name caller and said, you did not call me. and he said, "i called all the names that were listed, the names of all eligible dames in the land, surely you payed your taxes, so surely you'd be listed." he looked up at me, what is your name? tania york i said. "no.. no tania york." he knew i was a vagabond, but i did not complain he couldn't include me. i threw the trite and decored bow and arrow set at his feet. looks like i wont be needing this. and walked away

so i went to the rough side of town to find someone dashing my age, but all i found were elderly women pimping single digit sex slaves. and i felt sick to my stomach and i couldn't believe my eyes. i ran.


and i ran and i went behind the tent and cried in my arms. a young man named ronnie, 99 percent nice anditshowed, hosing horse shit behind the event came to console me. and he sure as hell didn't help

bloody sunday

i am fixing her sunday shoes, she slips, kicks me in the face and breaks my nose.

I am bloody and late for service. a brunette woman drags me out by the arm, says i don't belong. I say i was the first one here didn't you see? my nose got broke, i left to clean up. She says you obviously have no respect. i say please don't touch me. she pushes me faster towards the door. i say, please do not touch me. she hits me. this is assault. i tell her so. she says you are not a christian. i say this is true, but i am a woman of good will and virtue. she laughs psychotically in my face. she drags me towards an office. i say i will not fight you back, but i dont see the good in what you are doing. christ would show me mercy. she says you know nothing of christ. i threaten to call the cops. i plead with a blonde woman to control her. she seems sympathetic. but once my back is turned she begins to cut my clothes away with the scissors in her hand. the two push me back out into the lobby.

i do not fight back.
to prove my virtue.

she cuts away. the brunette digs her nails into my forehead and scratches away at my skin. blood comes down my face. i cover myself. i beg to the crowd of people in the lobby to help me, ask if they agree with what is happening. they shake their heads no. i plead with them to call the police. no one does. they all know they should.


they have me on the floor. they pull and push and scratch at my skin. call me a heathen, a satanist. mock me for titling myself virtuous. hit me for saying i respect jesus. they scrape my skin with the scissors. say 'i wonder what she looks like on the inside. witches don't bleed red.'

i am bleeding all over their carpet and it is red. i fear for my life. i weaken and make myself shout something about seeing the lord, about truly understanding him. i go limp on my belly and shout i am saved i am saved i am saved!

their hollering turns to laughter, ecstatic and shrill. they pull my head up of the ground by my hair then let it drop back down. they take the scissors and scrape down the center of my scalp. slowly at first, then dig deeper and deeper. someone cuts off a large piece of my hair. i grimace and weep. they all begin taking chunks and more chunks and cutting into my scalp.
swarming around me like some sort of bugs.
they are the witches.

sorry victim of time travel

***so many things happen before this***

i have traveled back in time. i am on a plane. i get up. Turbulence forces me to sit down next to this pepper grey-haired woman and a baby. I know this is flight 5. I know this plane crashes. I am not scared. I will make myself go to sleep at the right moment. Smoke-hazy-nebula-like glow floats through the air. Nobody panics because as it moves forward towards us, we assume it will pass. and once it passes it will gone. We think it's a chemical reaction. Not a fire in the engine. the baby yells "fuck!"

I dodge the first few large pieces of scrap metal. Little bits hit me in the forehead and cheeks, then my hands when i cover my face. i duck behind the chair in front of me and pull the pieces out. I thought this would hurt more, but in the moment each piece is like a urgently dull reality.

I am in a small chamber half the size of an airplane bathroom. A stewardess is being sucked down a tube much like they use at a bank drive through. Her face is covered with an oxygen mask. "The cowards!" i think to myself. I step in take a deep breath and hold my nose. The worst that will happen is I die. I would die in the chamber. I am spit out at the airport. This is an escape route for pilots and stewardesses during a crash. How fucked up. The lady working at the receiving end is surprised to see me. She asks if there's anyone behind me. I say no, but then i hear some sort of sound from the tube like there is...

I'm dumped in new york. It is 2009, but 9/11 has just happened. Really it's 1999 and my life is at the place it was in 2007. I know i can call David, but I don't remember his number. I figure I can go to my apartment and help me with whatever trouble i know i'm going through at this time, but i'm afraid to alter history. I am a sorry victim of time travel.

I am on a plane. it looks much like an auditorium. It is "airtran" A man takes up three seats next to me, laying down, lounging and what have you. He is sprawled out on all four seats with a large pan. I go to the bathroom to observe my dressed wounds. I am nervous about the flight. I watch my life for the past bit pass before my eyes. Kalonopin and vodka. "danielle!" the man says firmly, "Do you want Vegetables, Nuts, or Meat?" What? he points to the stewardess to my left "when the food comes..."
"oh,...vegetables."
I apologize to the man and explain i am confused. I consider telling him about my time travel problem. He asks me where i'm from. I say i'd love to answer that but i dont think i should (unfortunately you can't go back to your family if you've traveled through time....because you are there. you can't have any association to yourself). He asks why. I said i had an accident, i may or may not remember. I thumb a paper nervously in my hand.
I get a piece of paper filled out about the flight. My permanent address is listed as 1143 (or 147) Ascot something Trace pl. Newton, GA. The mailing address is a p.o. box with CA CA scribbled at the bottom.
"Well you have some reason in california" i look at him confused. "that address is in chico california." I'm still stuck with a confused look---thinking why i had a p.o box in chico california. "this flight goes to l.a. though i suppose you don't know that either..." I shake my head no --blame it on the accident. He asks if i got some sort of brain injury. I say no. I was on flight 5. "oh...." he says. "Do you know anything about time travel?" i ask. He looks at me with a "yes, but no" look on his face.
He pauses a moment and says,"i've spent most of my whole career work and campaigns on plane crashes. once a woman asked me to help with this aids program they were having. i said i couldn't do it. she got pretty mad, said i was insensitive...asked, how could you not care about a cause like aids? And i said...well because aids has never had any direct impact on my life. ...you know last time i went to california, i flew in twice, just to prove i could do it."

---i assume this man was on my plane with me, i assume he was behind me in the escape tube. i assume he ended up on the flight in the first place because it was attached some sort of wormhole. he is stuck in the same some sort of time travel warp dilemma as i

wake.

closure and the inevitable opposite

we are walking together down the street at night talking. stillness is light weight and hangs in the air like semi-flat soda(literally). we are holding hands or maybe we're not, or maybe sometimes we are and then we stop to let the other - itch his nose or maybe fiddle with some change in his pocket, she as in me, is always open handed waiting.

i am here for work of some sort, an exhibition i believe. i am still alone in life, though i am content and fulfilled. you seem the same, but i wouldn't know. we talk.
"it's looming, so i have to ask, what happened?"
"i dont know. it was too much and i couldn't handle it."
"it was really nothing and it didn't matter. it did, but now it doesn't"
"but it could have mattered, so i acted as it did, and if it would."
"i thought i'd just leave you alone."
"you shouldn't have. i didn't want you to. i wanted you to. and you did the right thing."
"it's good you're living here (missouri, minnesota, it started with an m). i'm in phili now."
"i know."

nothing is settled and shaking it up is useless because what we were is so weightless it can't help but remain suspended. it never quite gets in the way, but it never goes away either. like mineral flakes, in water. and nothing ever happened, so nothing needs to be wrapped up so everything will remain eternally unraveled. and we look at it on the floor like a heap of something that never belonged, but is there only because we bought the materials, and failed to build. or some little yarn ball creature you made some time ago--that's worth the effort it would take to throw away, but you can't help but keep it.

there are only songs and there are also songs. everything i touch sings and everything i touch begs something to be sung to. i am in this and it is a part of me. i feel lost, it's overwhelming. i feel perfectly at ease.

a quality rat

i was lucky enough to obtain a quality rat. we went together like peanut butter and jelly. he was smart and humble; he burrowed in the curve of my shoulder. we read each other's minds.

my grandmothers bought 5 terrible rats. they grabbed my good rat by the back of the neck and dragged him away. i grabbed each of the nasty rats by the jaw like snakes and held them tight in between my fingers so they would not escape.



-------------------


i lived in a room. they moved me out without asking. i couldn't find olive.


--------------------

Elliott smith was in the courtyard. David was sitting on the stairs. i knew i would meet him there and i knew he didn't know who i was. i jumped down from a high wall. i wore black sneaks. he looked at me concerned and then smiled as i trotted forward after stabilizing myself ahead of my feet with my fingertips. I threw my hair back, smiled at him. walked past him and looked back to see him watching me with some dreamy look on his face. i make eyes at him, but turn back ashamed, because i know what he doesn't know yet and how disappointing i will turn out to be.

later we are walking together. i'm afraid to climb the stairs. they are made of stacked books. it's too high for this, i say as the stacks fall apart.

I won't climb up, but i will jump down.

i made beautiful mono-prints.

i cut off all my hair so i can walk by you again as someone else.

what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. what didn't kill you has gotten stronger.

four planes crash, one, then another, then the other two, in the backyard of my parents house. the passengers limp up the hill holding each other on their feet. I let them know this is no coincidence.

they burn my mother's house down. they take her and my sister away. they say it was me they were looking for. they shoot at me. i push the bullets back at them through the air. they bounce off their skin and fall to the floor. everyone is laughing, the woman behind me shakes her head in pity. i cannot overcome these people, but i will not comply.

they have the whole world traced and covered. i cannot escape. i search the skies for a counter movement.

poor girl

in my room birds gather at my feet. i step carefully to not hurt them. i let them out into the hall.

chelsea lets people in from a sofa in the other room. she is watching t.v. i am waiting for you. someone kisses me not long enough. his girlfriend sits at his side and waits patiently. he was supposed to be you, and i know you will not come.


earlier i tried to find you at a fair, but all my signal signs were mimicked in the air. the powers that be said wait. i wore a lucky penny embedded in glass around my neck. a dainty girl helped me read an inscription with the magnifying glass she wore around hers. saint agnes and the alps etched on either side. it was a locket.

i found you playing in a vaudeville show. i sat in front in a large velvet sofa chair. your costuming was obscene and beautiful. girls danced all around you. you had no need for me. i decided not to come up to you after the show

milk bath

i am lying in a bathtub. i am bleeding, turning the water red - my body is covered in open wounds.

you creep in and sit across from me. you are naked and your flesh is sickly white. you come forward and lay above me. -we touch skin with the tips of our noses. we do not kiss. your chest heaves as you cry, because this love is an old love. because this love is something you will never do. my hands stay at my sides. my fingertips trace the curves of your back.

you are gone and i don't miss you. the water is pink milky red and white. i sit up. head between knees, i pull a purple ribbon from my throat.

dreams about death

DREAMS ABOUT DEATH

there are a lot of subcategories to this topic.

the great thing about dreaming in bulk, is you can separate your life into these little dream theme eras. for example, i had a lot of chasing dreams when i was little. -- running away from something horrifying, or getting stuck while something threatening closes in on me - always escaping at the last second - running like mad. I'd say these lasted till i was about 10, maybe 8.

from 11-14 i had a lot of smothering dreams. dreams the air was removed from the room...dreams my lungs filled up with cotton (great feeling), a hand over my mouth, biological war fare. drowning. a lot of drowning. so when i was fifteen i learned out to breath underwater. I still don't like my breathing infringed upon in my waking life. these dreams were a big deal.

The first drowning dream i had: age 12
awake: i am laying in bed staring at the fan..i start twitching something awful and try to move. i can not move (my first (remembered) experience of sleep paralysis...beginning of a fun life). i start to panic, this would not be obvious, i cannot move. the room is as it is. three dark hooded figures float above me. they say nothing. the don't move. they just hover above my head between me and my fan. i dont know that i'm asleep, but i figure i must not be awake. i feel pushing on my chest, my legs being squeezed. now i am on a boat. my cousin is floating in the water. i jump in to join him. my sister and my other cousin are there. they are tredding water. i try to but i cant. i go under. they grab for me but i sink farther and farther down. i struggle, my lungs fill with water. my cousins face with his hand extended -- a last bit of light, the sun on the surface of the water, flickers green. i wake up exhausted.


The last drowning dream I allowed myself to have: age...13/14
Everything around me is white. there is a a rumbling drone sound. i take a breath and and immediately choked. i realize my head, my whole body is submerged underwater, my hands are behind my back--the rumbling sound is the facet. i struggle to get up. there is smeothing holding me down, not a person, but some device. my hands are tied together so well. i remember how i set it up so i couldn't change my mind. i grimice, i am exhausted. i look to my left and see red dancing like ink in the water. my brain goes completely warm and then an orange black like closing your eyes in the sun. the warm trickles down the sides of my head and all over my body. (what it feels like to die in every dream i've ever died in).

That was the first suicide dream i ever had. arguably the only one, but there's no one to argue these things over given they're exclusive to me. Dark times man...

-8/10 - chasing dreams
11+ : experience of voices in the room
12-14: smothering dreams (drowning) - highlighted by occasional hallucinations of people in the room, holding me down, smothering me, often times worse.
13-17: people standing over me, i'd say 14+ is when the narcolepsy kicked in full force
14-18: witnessing the harming of the people i love. lots of blood. everyone dies
15-20: apocalyptic dreams. surviving or not. if surviving, dealing with it.
18-22: the fucking warrior years. i kicked ass during this time.
21-22: passive and scary individuals in my space. people being harmed in my presence, maybe indirectly because of me. me helpless.

8-22: sex dreams. haha they're no nightmare! but recurring none-the-less...

holy/hell

.....(long excessive dream introduction)
i am with a friend from elementary school, Stephen. He is pale and red haired. I associate him with ron from harry potter. We are in an old irish or english home. After doing some weird dream shit with floating candles, we are sitting at the base of an old wooden, creakedy staircase. at the top of the stairs the door opens to a kitchen where an overweight women is working.

"you know you are great. you are destined for greatness, there's no avoiding it. why don't your let people know? why won't you let yourself be." he says. i am sitting with my back to the top of the stairs. as he is explaining and asking i get tense and nervous. i start to cry. i do a paranoid back check, looking behind me up the stairs and into the kitchen. "because what i'm destined to be great at, people will want to hurt me for."
he looks at me with revelation in his eyes. "that's right. he had said tha..." a woodcarving tool comes shooting through the open door at the top of the stairs, hitting him dead center in the forehead. i leap to block it, but am too late. blood blends red with his hair and trickles over his blue eyes. i quickly 'bless' the other two people we are with and feel awful for not doing this sooner.

i wake myself up to avoid conflict. once awake, i consider going back to sleep and starting the dream just before the blade was thrown and to stop it so i could hear what he was going to say. I decide not to. no sense in putting yourself in a hostile situation. I am sick of bloody dreams.


(((((((earlier dream)))))))))
looking to sex an attractive white male who is down to sex me (no use on wasting my *mental energy* on someone who's going to be difficult). mark with green light. encounter too young of a someone. new criteria - 21+ - marked by blue light.

i find some dude, he is crossing the street with three girls. he is wearing a camel colored jacket. i whisper in his ear. he smiles and tells the girls he'll catch up with them in five minutes. oh great! that's not time at all. i get us in cab.
we share a cab with some strangers. end up in a hotel
i find a way to get a room for free
room 32.
we're going to the room. people from the cab are coming down the hall. my sex toy boy is starting to deflate. i try to hold him up straight as they pass so they won't be suspicious of us. soon he deflates all the way. i am holding a limp suit wearing skin out in front of me by the shoulders with the thumb and middle finger of each hand. i decide it'd be best for me to drape it over my arm. if anyone asks i'll say it's his dry cleaning.


SEX IN DREAMS
Sex is a fickle little battle in dreams. the dream very quickly becomes what it's not about, by which i mean the subject i want it to be about (which most often times is sex.). this is quite unfortunate. When this happens, i am forced to wake up, go back to sleep and try again. When i do finally find a willing young man (sometimes there are no people in the dream and i am super horny...that or there are people, just no one sex worth) and we get busy, things may or may not go as i had planned. i regularly wake myself up by spending too much mental energy trying to improve the situation (upgrading his assets, changing the scenery). When it's great, something else in the real world wakes me up. That or it's just plain great. This is the ideal.

great surrealist tricks!

i am a great magician. really i'm just me.
my classmates are filming a movie.
they are covered in colorful, cheep silks.

i'm on the side watching. i make flowers shoot out of my hands to pass the time. it stings like stigmata. the wound in my hand grows and grows.

leigha asks me if i can make ants come out of my hand. i make gumdrops and 'a wee cone of cotton candy.' they appear out of thin air between my cupped hands. i hand each to her, then make ants come out from the center of my palm. great surrealist tricks!

a lot more happens in this dream, but its not so interesting to write. bad psychics and worse friends. my hands throb.

i may or may not throw up.

real life: i turn on music and lay down for a 10 minute nap. while i'm asleep the song "bye bye butterfly" by pauline oliveros comes on.

(this song:
(only seven minutes long)

in my dream. i am in a chalky white auditorium. we are sitting on a podium listening to sound pieces. alex is behind me. my performance professor is to my right. the song is piercing, haunting. i tilt the podium forward and we all fall, synchronized, like this was planned or expected, our hands catch us in front of our chests. i rise back up. everyone follows my lead. the lights are dim and we begin to dance. the song progresses slowly, or movements follow. lauren is to my right.

i am literally weightless on my feet. i hover. levitate above the ground. i cannot feel the ground when my feet touch it but it's there, shining chalky white. our reflections are vague in the window. we are wearing black cat suits. lauren begins to levitate as well. we all do, higher and higher. a few girls touch the ceiling with their heads. when they do the room is flooded with bright warm light. our energy is booming. our focus unparalleled. i float to touch the cieling with my head. i can't get quite high enough. i push off the floor, which i can't feel below my feet and finally make it. the dance crescendos and on lookers are pleased. there is a great finale.

we are finished and breathless. the room again dark. in the front row we are laying on our bellies. i look behind me to two kneeling girls talking behind me. there is something that resembles nailpolish on my back. i identify it as drying blood, but have no idea where it came from. the girls are as confused as me. where did this come from. i thought, maybe i cut myself. i see blood streaks on the arm of another girl. we were really into it. i see random drips of blood on the floor. this is not our blood. there is too much. the drips increase to converge at puddle where the floor meets the wall. i follow it up. on a metal wall fixture a lifeless body is draped. dressed in a black catsuit like me. dressed in a black catsuit like everyone else with her body draped dead and wet and bleeding. her head dangling. the song pierces haunting operasings and my heart stops working. the lights are still off and no one sees.


what monsters am i with? how could i have led this dance
i turn away horrified (which is not the correct word).
the lights turn on and i hear the horrible screams of revelation with my eyes shut.

i am awake and i am crying and i may or may not throw up.

everything in this store comes from the family

ghosts paint themselves to avenge love unrequited

metal shop, glowing lockers, wood and steel. trace the tracks.

i sleep on the sidewalk of thompson square, though i know what has happened here, i am not scared. it is a different time.

you are the sugar and i am the spoon. you mumble in your sleep, i clog your inbox with exhalations of the fall. i am the sugar and you are the spoon. you mumble in your sleep. "I could get ice cream and wouldn't even have to have ice cream because i would be there with you" you said. "lauren?" i asked. "yes" and the sugar falls from the spoon.

a cross in a gallery glows. an aura pulses at the word hope. the artists name it the second coming cross. the cynics say nothing.

you said i was in your nightmare with saint maria and the church. i am really very sorry, because i know how this can be...and i know what it may seem. and i hope at least i helped you.

sol said she threw away 21 gallons of latex paint over mold discontentment.


i wake up dry heaving.

and i feel better off

monks in red robes come out the wooden door. they throw yellow butterflies into the air. several stay on my eyelashes and in my hair.

you come back smiling and cut a square out of one of their wings. i cry. a monk consoles me and says,'but that's what men do.'

the monks continue on in a line. there are yellow butterflies everywhere.

and i start this dream with a bj....(i'm sad i said i loved you, but i don't regret it.)

we are filling up a bath and getting sexy. we stop for a while for me to take my clothes off you say something along the lines of 'it's going to be overwhelming.' sitting back in a blue button-up shirt i say, 'it's okay, i can handle it' and roll over onto my belly. i look back at you and say 'because you know i'm in love with you right?'
you don't respond.
i didn't expect you to, that's not why i said it.
you leave because you remembered something.

i'm sitting in the quarter-filled bath. she comes in and says she needs to take a shower now; sorry, get out: she has a baby shower to go to.. he is going to the same one. 'he's going to come back and he is not going to fuck you' she implies. she says something about having sex in the tub. i said we didn't have sex in the tub. she says i should get him to bring me to the baby shower. i say nah, that i would if he wanted me to, that it would be weird to ask. that i have plenty of things i should be doing. a baby shower is a pretty awkward thing to go to. we're not even dating.

we are standing in the hallway talking. she says 'of course a man would never miss you. men don't miss anything' i say, 'i don't know, i hope that's not true. i mean i've really missed him.' (i don't say who him is.) (i mean i hope he misses me too.)

i ask her what you are doing. she says you're looking for something. i ask her if she wants to see a trick. she says sure. i tell her to name something in this house she wants. she says cigarettes. i try to get the cigarettes. obviously there were none in the house. so i say, "okay i'll try my purse." i attract my purse. you come back upstairs. my purse slams into the door and gets stuck. i tell you if you ever can't find anything, that i can do this trick and then you don't have to look. you don't seem disinterested. i just can't read you.

we leave. i attract everything in the house that is mine. i realize i wasn't wearing shoes. all i have are muddy flipflops. you want me to go to the baby shower or maybe you feel obligated to invite me. i look like a sexed wreck and all i have are muddy flip-flops. i'm sad i said i loved you, but i don't regret it.

heroin takes up a lot of time

david's band is playing a show at something is very much like a high school, if not actually a high school. i watch them play from the second row with about fifteen friends. some kid who is there new manager hits on me. he must not know who i am... so after the show i go to the bathroom. well i go and look at myself and i look a mess. i shaved a triangle into the side of my head. i guess it would cool if i didn't look so tired. i considered trying to go see david, but decided i looked too haggered. in the snack line is chris calzone and bryan miller and all those boys. they are all punked out like MAD. i ask them if they remember me and they all say OF COURSE and shower me with knuggies and hugs and cuddles and squeezes and it is great and i feel so safe. they are playing a show in the lobby. i see joey harmon in the snack line. i say hi. he ignores me, chris is holding me around the waist from behind with his chin on my head. i say whatever. i tell chris i dated a guy in that band for two years. and he said oh you should introduce me they weren't bad. i tell him i can't. i know david is successfully hiding out from me somewhere, and i don't want to be disrespectful. I want to ask chris about eric, but i decide it would be inappropriate...
so the boys start playing their show and they are really good. eric is there! and he looks alright..in between songs and during songs they slip in my name and tell me how much they miss me. i try to make eye contact with eric, but he pretends he doesn't see me. i walk outside to see if i can catch david because i know they have to load up their stuff eventually. i didn't want to be confrontational, i just wanted to see him. this kid says he'll come with me for moral support. he gives me a leather jacket and puts his arm around me. we walk down the side walk. i see david he comes out and is like "HEY i was gonna come see if i could find you but i decided i better not!!!" which is rude, but i was like "ohhh SAME!!!!" mimicking his enthusiasm. he takes me in for a hug and i hold my left wrist behind his back with my right hand. a hand grabs tight around my arm above the elbow. it's the guy that came with me. i break up the hug. i introduce him to david then realize i don't know his name. he extends the hand not holding my arm and says "hey man, i'm pete.' then turns and pulls me away. i fall. david says "oh!" pete keeps walking, dragging me behind him like a rag doll. i look at david and try to explain he doesn't mean it, that i don't even know him. he just says "oh!!" again and stares at us wide eyed. pete pulls me up on my feet, but continues to pull me by my arm, right above the elbow. i wonder, scared, if david will come send people to come beat him up. i decide he won't. i walk back to the show alone. this weird boogery punkrocker kid comes up to me and wants me to come into this weird room with him. I keep walking and refuse him. he follows me. I get back to the show and everyone is gone. the mics are still up, but some of the equipment is missing. I look at the boogery kid and ask where they went. He walks away and i follow him. he takes me to the room he was trying to take me into earlier. Conner and some other kid whose name i forgot enter through the door the kid tried to take me in earlier. they have hoods up over their heads. they are paranoid. i tell them it's just me. and they say oh. i pull the hood off one of their faces (conor's). his eyes were huge and black and his skin was pale and sweaty. i said oh sorry! and put it back over his face. then eric showed up and was like "not danielle, ah man" i felt bad. i said "eric it's okay, i don't care what you do. i love you no matter what bra'. you're doing your own thing i totally respect that." so he came in and talked to me for a two seconds. mentioned some chick named veronica. mumbled nonsense. i didn't want to ruin his high anymore than i already had, so i let them all go. i thought for two seconds about following them. but decided starting to do heroin would be a pretty big commitment. i walked home.

you are a sleep, i am too sleep

your brother wrote that song? i bought an inch worm at the store that plays the very same tune. i loved it so much, i bought two. one fell behind the radiator. first half price, second one free. this one is falling apart, but you get the point. does he know about this?

churn of the tide, Golfer's Digest last century

i wake up in a room. everything is dark. the mattress is on the floor. i turn to my left. a horrible looking something is right next to my face. it turns out to be a basket. i get up slowly and quietly - proceed with caution till i know what i'm dealing with (this often is the case). The room is dark, dungeon like. a hodge-podge of items are strewn around the floor, against the walls. rod-iron decoration. stucco panels with golden emblems. dark wood tables. a bookshelf full of middle-eastern and Indian looking chachki. I walk over to the door. there is a full-length mirror propped up against it. its border is red with gold lacy/jewely decoration. I want to look at myself but am still nervous about my surroundings. also nervous that i don't dig mirrors in dreams. it's just a creepy concept. I take a quick glance. an all black caped figure with a white line at my eye level looks back at me. grim-reaper shit. i'm a bit shaken, but i let it go. i'm distracted by a wall hanging to the right of the door. Its a brownish, gold wooden plate with a faded red border. written clearly across the middle in black is arabic text. (typically in dreams text, for me, is jumbled or nonsensical. or it's not actually there, but is perceivable. this text, though i couldn't read it because it wasn't in my language, was clear as glass. if i had a photographic memory i could write it for you.) i realize at this point this is not a dream, this is a place and a memory. i have not been here before, but it is real. i will not be able to manipulate what happens, the scene or anything, no silly protective spells, nothing. The only difference between how i feel here and waking life is i know i'm dreaming.


i push the mirror out of the way, open the door and come out.and the couple standing in the bathroom greet me warmly. there are at least two other figures moving around. i know they know me. "this is strange, and don't be concerned, but i just woke up and i don't remember my room." They look at me lovingly and with concern, but are not getting it. "like...i've never been here before. i don't remember who you two are. i dont know your names. i don't even know my name." They console me, give little advice, ask questions. Did you eat something weird? Did you hit your head? Maybe there was a gas leak... I kept trying to wheedle answers out of their diagnoses. Like where we are...what is my role in relation to you. what do i do here. I know, from the conditions of my room that i am of a different belief system, and of a different socio-economic status. I gather from the arabic writing in my room and my headscarf I am muslim. I pull and fidget with my scarf. trying to show my discomfort, trying to prove to them i am a different soul in the body of whomever this person is they're used to. I'm not delusional, i just don't know how i'm supposed to be whoever this is. Usually i'm given a set of understanding as to my role, in addition to my conscious, waking knowledge. This time i was purely me inside someone else. How do you communicate that to someone? I keep thinking back to the room (which is confusing in dreams, thinking back to something gives you a mental visual image of the place, but the dream itself is a mental image of a "place" or scenario, so it's easy to get confused as to where you are at any given point if your thoughts are disjointed/not focusing intently on the now...(this is why i think most people consider dreams nonsensical---there associations spin out of control) but i know that i was with them THINKING about the room, and didn't actually go back to the room, because the dream faded out as i was trying to get some answers)


i wake up again. my room is as it was, but a little bit more haphazard. i open the door. the everything is dark as before and the house is completely empty. my face is still covered. i keep thinking - maybe this is the fall of afghanistan -- what ever it was that happened there in the 70s or 80s i believe it was, i dont really remember. i'll read about this when i wake up. i head down the hallway and try to be very quiet. i don't believe i should have left my room. Something is wrong. the air is heavy

a ledge by the window has a stack of magazines and newspapers...all in english, american. i know that i'm not in america. this is somewhere in the middle east i know. there's something vaguely tropical about the climate maybe? the scenery is not so lush though. just hot. the house has lots of large windows (but is still very dark) and a lot of access to the outdoors (like homes in central america)
The newspaper on top is from Chicago. I try and read the date. my dream eyes are hazy, but i force them into focus using the edge of the golf magazine (if i try to hard, i wake up. i'm getting better at not forcing or thinking about things too hard. it must make me too concious/makes me wake up. sometimes (most of the time) i can get my dream back to where it was, or at least on the same train of thought, but there's always something a little bit different about it) - The date reads December 18, 1988. What happened in 88? this is a year after i was born, so I know waking me is not this person, or i'm not having some sort of "past life dream" or even a personal memory dream. I'm pretty sure i am a maid, or house keeper of some sort. there's obviously something Not Right going on, though out the window the grass is green and the sky is shining sunny blue. I try to commit the cover of the Golf magazine to memory to reference when i wake up - find the date - find the edition. I see a silhouette of a figure move past a window to the courtyard behind me through a reflection in the window. I decide to go and follow it to find out what's going on. I realize that the hostility in the air could very well be some racial tension that I'm on the ass end of...in fact i know this. I follow anyway.

I'm led to a neighboring building. Inside a room there is a meeting. I can tell i am not welcome here.
i intrude anyway. "excuse me, i don't mean to interupt, but I am having a problem i need help with." I get the feeling these people acknowledging me at all would be significant. I figure I'm expected to be and act a certain way, and to do something extreme will get there attention enough to listen to me. I'll get some sort of answers. I take the hood of my burka down and reveal my face. "Does anyone here know me that can help me." Everyone is silent. "none of you know me?" I look them each in the eye one by one to agitate a response. An elderly woman towards the front center folds her hands and fidgets.

She steps outside with me. I give her a similar schpeal i gave the couple in home home earlier. She spats some crap about understading the stress i must be going through given what's happening, it must be post-traumatic stress syndrome or something. I take the whole burka off to reveal myself in my entirety. trying to do something the person who i am wouldnt' do. trying to show that i am not her in here. The woman looks at me with concern, but i think she's getting it. or at least she wants to believe me. There was obviously something greater than me going on. I guess now that i think about it i should have been more concerned with trying to figure out what was happening that made everyone so tense. But i didn't want to overstep the boundries of the individual whose body i was seeing through. (stripping her down to her skibbies OBVIOUSLY didn't compromise any of her morals...silly me) I didn't want to get her hurt or worse killed. like i said, this wasn't a dream, it was an occupation.

men at the foot of my bed that aren't there really. you can't see them, but they're there

i am feeling to restless too sleep and this is my dream. i get my guitar to play and make me feel better. it is has new dents and is terribly fucked up. i decide i will have to bring it to get fixed somewhere and from then on it will be left at home.

earlier dream - i'm walking and stop by a radio station. the equipment is in a closet like thing and the floor is ankle deep in water. i think about how dangerous this is. the man is about to change cds, i say excuse me. he starts to play guitar and i sing along. he tells me to sing louder because he can't hear me. i apologize. my guitar is with me

so i realize that this dented guitar is not mine, but his. i'm horrified. i have to think of a way to get mine back. Kaitlin is leaving to go pick something up from someone who is at a place called "moes muffins" on "the west end"

i get on my computer to pass the time. my room is as is. will granberry sends me a video chat invite. everyone is there, including some obscure cat. in the video shot of me there is a man sitting behind me on my bed. i am laying on my belly, in the dark - the light highlighting me and a MAN is sitting with his legs off the side of my goddamn bed. he is not there really, but he is there on the screen. i move my screen so i don't have to look at him. i think this is a dream and ask "do you guys see man behind me?" chelsea laughs saying "yea, hah who is that?" i slam the computer close and wake the fuck up.

to dream, you need new york

lincoln,nebraska -i can skateboard enough to get by. three great men go to yoga. i can't tell them in which direction it is. well maybe i know the building. i take one to the barracks. we get back, only to intrude on a painting class. 'it's okay,' i say,'i am a painter!'

a play with all my people in it.
they were all each others' people. i had no place there.

so i left. my shoes, my purse, my crossword puzzle were back at the stands. i walk home in my socks.

grandma wanted to go back to the nursing home. she tried to drive herself with my car

outside my door i heard her say "maybe you're a genius, maybe your something else. or maybe you are one of those procrastinators. remember volume, remember light! " (said in a less accusative, more monologue sort of tone). i knew she was there. i didn't have to respond. i was napping.



worst case scenario: i ride my bike - you show me the way home. i'm being followed by a man. i tell you to slow down. i'm being followed by a man. i tell you, you don't understand. you think i'm signaling keep going. this man is following me and you notice to late. you see, you slow down. it is too late. you try to punch him. you knock him off his bike. he lands in the road. he will get hit by a car. we can't just leave him there i say. but we can you say. we keep going. the man in the road yells - i am him!. you realize it was a misunderstanding. you can't take it back. a car runs him over and you can't take it back.

he is still alive, but this is post-scenario talk. he drags himself to the side of the road but where to go now-- he is a twisted shape in a marching band - crooked and mangled amongst hundreds of identically dressed and poised men.

i said i'll go up if you carry me. everyone else refused but you complied because you're strong. i thought "what a specimen" (much as i do when i am awake.) you carried me up the stairs, then walked back down, just to could carry me up again.


a dream from earlier in my nap:
ansley pike gave me a christmas present wrapped once in white tissue paper (which was wrapped once over white tissue paper covered in green holly leaves). it was a book. i had no interest in it, but thought of something to say that would make me sound like i did. she got sam an hour glass. he had more interest in the book

i collected seashells by the shore. they were teal and salmon and mustard yellow.
a fat woman stepped on my them. they were in a pile on a ledge near the shore. I found a better one. it had ashtray potential.
the water was a louder clapping silver here. the tide pulled me in.



which makes me remember...

being on the beach in france, if france was a truman show type carnival. instead of sand there were glass beads. i thought of all the money i would make selling jewelry made from things i got for free.

i was with someone and we were sexing near the water. the beads made that weird squeaking, gritty sound they make when wet and rubbed together.