Dreams

They’ve promised that dreams can come true. But forgot to mention that…

I dream of the worst parts of me, at night, in my head where no one else can see my sins. I watch me abuse myself, in mind, body, and spirt, in ways that I am too cowardly to carry out in the light of the dawn. But when the light flickers through the windows, I find that I am wishing for that alternate reality.

There are days I ink my skin in blue hearts because I can’t try kill myself any more. I made a promise to the second boy who shattered my heart and the only time I think about him is when I want to die. It’s funny how the people who changed your life, who once meant love and hope and tomorrow become equated with pain and suffering and death.

In order to distract myself, I write nonsense on paper, on screens, on anything I can touch. In order to distract myself, I craft with needles that I could use between my ribs and instead use them to create something out of a bit of string. In order to distract myself, I play make believe with a roll of some dice that I obsessively collect too many of because they’re something tangible and beautiful and even at rest, the chaotic swirls of colors calm my mind in a way that seven medications in two years have all failed to do.

Most days my heart screams at me to keep going, that tomorrow is coming, that you are happy. But sometimes my brain slinks into my soul and stares me dead in the face and says “You don’t deserve them. They do not love you. You’re not worth the skin on their feet, the air in their lungs, or the beat of their hearts. You are not the melody they hear, the kiss of sunlight or rain, the color you were blind to, the sweet taste of victory, the homerun feeling, the sharp comeback on the tip of your tongue, the love in your heart. They’d be better off…stop stalling.”

And there are days, oh there are days, where I believe it. There are days where I beg God to have taken me instead. Take me instead of the boy who flew through the windshield. Take me instead of the two women who went too fast and too soon from the same damn cancer that I wish I could prevent. Take me instead of the husband and father and grandfather who did nothing but love and serve and smile. Take me instead of the mother who never woke up again and sent three sons into shock and changed their universes forever. TAKE ME INSTEAD.

At night, I never dream that God took me instead. That’s only a dream for the daylight.

…nightmares are dreams too.

-Oscar Wilde