IOU (Poetry Preview)

a memory of a dream. a dream of a memory

Last night's dream feels like this:

Tangy. The aftertaste of iron left clotting in the insides of my cheeks. Swollen up, bruised — a broken promise left in the cups of unwanting hands. Lips too split to confess; fragments of the past finding its way back into a lost city.

The ghost of a distant melody plays in the background, bouncing within the small universe, lulling the air.

The world is a mâché, built from the rubbles of my memories — carried by the wind, by the walls that hold the universe up by its strings. The edges serve as a home to rest the gaps that hold moments I am yet to live and the choices I haven't chosen.

Last night's dream unravels like this:

A few streets from the unknown, I find myself standing. Within the damp gap of an alley, a bistro sits, weaved in the middle of the concrete jungle – out of place. In ways familiar, yet at times not at all.

The small structure, creaking against the breeze and wafting of stiffened cream, is minutely sandwiched between giant buildings – ones too big that they breach the sky's tapestry. Tidal in a way that my peripheral could not even begin to distinguish the end of them — even when I looked up. Even when I stood on the tips of my toes and began to float.

Although nonsensical, the sun rays still find their way to highlight the gap, making the rain's remains sparkle against the asphalt. The mirage and the wet pavement a perfect image of summer. Just in the cusp of September.

Yes, it was September.

There, I meet him. Was it again or the first time? I can't tell. I don't know if I dreamt a dream or a memory.

But as fate once told me, I found myself a job in the same bistro by the time he walks into the alley, hood over his hair and plastic umbrella in hand. I stand by the open windows of the coffee house, smiling at unknown faces I'm yet to recognize and laughing with familiar strangers, and in the afterthoughts of the drizzle, he stops adjacent to where I stood. It's fate. It's a memory that I'm not familiar with. The strings keeping the world suspended tightens. Heavier than before. I catch him once again.

In perfect serendipity, he looks my way and gazes as if he remembers. Like he knows. Everything in my world starts to dilute.

The world tilts, a connection tethers off balance.

The owner of the cafe, big bellied and grinning, calls out for my attention to clean up a table a few steps to my left and it rips me out of my daze.

Still, I keep my eyes on him.

I didn't want to move, because I knew if I shifted my gaze by a tilt, his face would be too watery to distinguish by the time I looked back. Just as all the dreams I've had prior where everything disappears — before I can run after his back, before I can remember his name. In spite of that, I end up doing as told – a bite on my finger, a broken wishbone inside a fist. I wonder when I'll see him again.

The sun travels, the light shifts — I turn around to check if he still exists in the world that continues to hum the drowned out tune from a long forgotten black sedan's radio.

And as foretold, a lost wish is heard by a stray meteorite — a tall figure still stands outside. Refusing to move an inch. Still there, eyes on me. Clear as day. Waiting for me to do something. Something.

Around this phase, I'm too deep into sleep that everything feels real. So real in fact that if I had just walked out of the establishment and crossed to where he was standing, I would've finally caught up to him.

But it plays out just as it always does, like clockwork. Half a second too late. It's destiny's curse, once again. People begin to pile into the alley. They look like his friends, people he worked with – people I can remember, people I don't know. He stays still even when they walk past him. The owner of the bistro asks me if I know him and I say yes despite the fact that I don't think we've met before. We're existing in a time we haven't met yet. A time we can no longer exist.

The wishbone gets stuck in my throat, and I begin to choke.

On a whim, I move away and quit my job. I don't know why. I just did, even though I didn't want to. Maybe it was fate. An untold chapter that got lost under all the pages that's stained by his name.

I moved to where it's barren. Where there's no night, with only the sun and dust of the earth meeting in between. I walked away. I only walked this time. I didn't run, didn't take the bus. It felt like forever, but I got to where I was headed. It's endless days away from that city. In this wasteland, I can see the edge. So close to seeing a part of me that I never chose, versions of myself I can still be. I should've kept going. I should've been more curious to what lies ahead from where I was just standing. I should've kept walking away.

But instead of finding myself, I find myself going back to the same bistro, still wafting of ristretto, and waiting for him outside. There, the rain never ends. The vines grow and crawl up my feet. It's familiar. I don't know how long I was standing there, but he meets me again.

This time, his face is watered down. I barely recognize him, but I still run after his presence. I find myself taking too many risks at once. All for him that's now all blurry face, with only his hands left for me to discern.

My dream starts to feel too real.

Like a memory, I end up bleeding. I end up having a mouth too full of red after I clasp a chain onto his wrist as a reminder of me. Everything feels raw, like I could explode at any moment. I could taste the blood crowding my mouth, the bruise on my lip, the cut on my tongue from the bitter bite of trying to recall, to remember. It stings. Dreams shouldn't sting.

I eventually try, and ended up washing it off in a fast food restroom when I can no longer keep it in my throat. He's no longer next to me. He disappeared a long time ago. I can feel judging eyes on my back as I try to wash the blood off and keep myself awake. I watch the red turn into blue before it disappears down the drain. I begin to wonder why it always ends like this.

Soon, I find myself in a town I once saw in another dream. Pale pink houses with blue panels. Where the grass turns into the color of over creamed coffee every time I take a step, and the skies are minty green like my old sheets. I meet people I haven't met yet that feel like friends, and I tell them about how ever since he left, my mouth has not stopped bleeding.

"Is it because of something you said?"

"No." I answered, before the distant melody from before, the sonata, starts growing louder and louder until it's all I hear. The universe's strings snap. "It's because of the words I didn't say."

"A Memory of a Dream, A Dream of a Memory"

© Rizu Lu
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