X-Posted. The Aftermath
Again, it is night and she is hunched over in a cubbyhole in the library building. The atmosphere is dark, secluded, isolated, students have already gone home for the day and only one or two people scatter about,unseen and unheard. She has not been here in a long time, she devours the solitude hungrily, not even aware of the litter strewn around her in a messy explosion. Tissues, paper plates, empty coffee cups. Her half-drunk paper cup of Coke contributes to the mess, herself in her dirty coat, unwashed hair, baggy clothes, half-hidden in the darkness, scribbling furiously on a torn scrap of paper, a small book propped against her knees for a makeshift desk. Head bent over, squinting from the poor fluorescent lighting, she starts to narrate her dream:
"I had been living off-campus for awhile now. It was the basement of a house, an old basement from my dreams. I recall its familiarity eventhough I know of no such basement in real life. I know it has taken precedent in previous dreams. It is wide and spacious, airy and underground, separated into several rooms by open walls with no doors, sort of like a studio. The bedroom and television are located in the far back end, in the darkest corner, for privacy. I realized my mother was coming to visit and had arrived earlier than expected. I panicked when I remembered you were here, asleep in my room, like you always were. I pressed the elevator button impatiently, hoping to get to you first. I remember being annoyed at not being able to call you, but I didn't have my phone. The elevator door opened and it was my mother! She was fasted than I thought. Somehow, I managed to get down to the basement faster than her, stalling her and then taking the stairs I suppose.
I ran down and burst into the bedroom. My mother's here. You have to go, I say. You stir lazily and move a little. Someone else rustles beside you, a lump under the covers, I didn't notice until now. It's a girl, young, thin, Asian, pale, long black hair. She is not particularly attractive, not as attractive as the girl I pegged to be the reason for you letting go of me. She gets up and rushes to the corner, near me, to shimmy into her fallen jeans, a denim crumple on the carpeted bedroom floor, the ones you probably pulled off her while running your hands down her bare, bony hips in a fit of passion. She even smiles absently at me. I feel nothing at this. A little surprised, but nothing else. I am more occupied about my mother's appearance, and there she is, walking up behind me. She sees you, already standing up from the bed, she sees me, but then she sees the other girl. I sense her disapproval but it's not as bad as if she were to fine here alone. With me. No you were just another male friend, who uses my bedroom sometimes to crash. I feel empty relief.
It moves to the next dream. I awake and it is bright and sunny. I am especially aware of it because I am right next to the window, the sunlight washes over the entire room. I am in the midst of a conversation, a familiar comfortable one that I have every day that it becomes almost mechanical. The conversation is between me and my significant other. The person who I had slept with the night before and probably many nights before that. We live together. Perhaps with other people as well in this house. But most importantly is that we are together. He looms over me, I am warmed by his nearness, I feel as though it has been silently agreed that I belong to him. He is tall, towering over me, older (judging by his hairiness), much older. I turn to study his profile and am shocked to discover what I find. Not just at him, but in myself. I am repulsed by him. I am ashamed of his ugliness and his age. He is an unattractive older man, someone I am not remotely attracted to except for the fact that he takes care of me. We are still in a constant soft murmur of conversation, it happens throughout my displaced realization. I hate the familiarity of the movements between us. I hate being attached to him yet I do not know this, or at least, the body in the dream that is supposed to be me. I am conscious of watching myself. She (me) pulls on his boxers, slips his buttoned shirt on, oversized on her frame. She is in his clothes, looking positively like a boy's girlfriend. Like this man's lover, wearing the-night-after bedclothes. I hate her. I want to ask her, What is she doing with him? She is so much better than this. Suddenly, the topic of conversation pulls my interest back to her, and melds our consciousness together again. I am her, she is me. He is saying something about a shirt. His shirt hanging on the closet. I turn to look at it, and once again, the conversation blurs out. Not because it is a familiarity, I plainly don't hear him at all for I am too busy recognizing the shirt. The shirt, I remember you had one just like it. It is a button-up with soft blue stripes. He says something, but the shirt engulfs all my senses. I only see the shirt, I only think, you had one just like it. This is a different shirt, yes. But with the same design. "
What does it mean. what does it mean. She wakes, she remembers where she is again. She remembers he is also in the building, perhaps somewhere three,four floors away, head bent, not thinking about her.
"I had been living off-campus for awhile now. It was the basement of a house, an old basement from my dreams. I recall its familiarity eventhough I know of no such basement in real life. I know it has taken precedent in previous dreams. It is wide and spacious, airy and underground, separated into several rooms by open walls with no doors, sort of like a studio. The bedroom and television are located in the far back end, in the darkest corner, for privacy. I realized my mother was coming to visit and had arrived earlier than expected. I panicked when I remembered you were here, asleep in my room, like you always were. I pressed the elevator button impatiently, hoping to get to you first. I remember being annoyed at not being able to call you, but I didn't have my phone. The elevator door opened and it was my mother! She was fasted than I thought. Somehow, I managed to get down to the basement faster than her, stalling her and then taking the stairs I suppose.
I ran down and burst into the bedroom. My mother's here. You have to go, I say. You stir lazily and move a little. Someone else rustles beside you, a lump under the covers, I didn't notice until now. It's a girl, young, thin, Asian, pale, long black hair. She is not particularly attractive, not as attractive as the girl I pegged to be the reason for you letting go of me. She gets up and rushes to the corner, near me, to shimmy into her fallen jeans, a denim crumple on the carpeted bedroom floor, the ones you probably pulled off her while running your hands down her bare, bony hips in a fit of passion. She even smiles absently at me. I feel nothing at this. A little surprised, but nothing else. I am more occupied about my mother's appearance, and there she is, walking up behind me. She sees you, already standing up from the bed, she sees me, but then she sees the other girl. I sense her disapproval but it's not as bad as if she were to fine here alone. With me. No you were just another male friend, who uses my bedroom sometimes to crash. I feel empty relief.
It moves to the next dream. I awake and it is bright and sunny. I am especially aware of it because I am right next to the window, the sunlight washes over the entire room. I am in the midst of a conversation, a familiar comfortable one that I have every day that it becomes almost mechanical. The conversation is between me and my significant other. The person who I had slept with the night before and probably many nights before that. We live together. Perhaps with other people as well in this house. But most importantly is that we are together. He looms over me, I am warmed by his nearness, I feel as though it has been silently agreed that I belong to him. He is tall, towering over me, older (judging by his hairiness), much older. I turn to study his profile and am shocked to discover what I find. Not just at him, but in myself. I am repulsed by him. I am ashamed of his ugliness and his age. He is an unattractive older man, someone I am not remotely attracted to except for the fact that he takes care of me. We are still in a constant soft murmur of conversation, it happens throughout my displaced realization. I hate the familiarity of the movements between us. I hate being attached to him yet I do not know this, or at least, the body in the dream that is supposed to be me. I am conscious of watching myself. She (me) pulls on his boxers, slips his buttoned shirt on, oversized on her frame. She is in his clothes, looking positively like a boy's girlfriend. Like this man's lover, wearing the-night-after bedclothes. I hate her. I want to ask her, What is she doing with him? She is so much better than this. Suddenly, the topic of conversation pulls my interest back to her, and melds our consciousness together again. I am her, she is me. He is saying something about a shirt. His shirt hanging on the closet. I turn to look at it, and once again, the conversation blurs out. Not because it is a familiarity, I plainly don't hear him at all for I am too busy recognizing the shirt. The shirt, I remember you had one just like it. It is a button-up with soft blue stripes. He says something, but the shirt engulfs all my senses. I only see the shirt, I only think, you had one just like it. This is a different shirt, yes. But with the same design. "
What does it mean. what does it mean. She wakes, she remembers where she is again. She remembers he is also in the building, perhaps somewhere three,four floors away, head bent, not thinking about her.
Comments
I want to forget you and start all over again
You are not wrong to say the things you've said. I don't deserve to be loved by you.