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.