dreamland

twenty

I didn't have anything to do the next day.
It had snowed again over night so I could hear my dad ‪at 5 am‬, shoveling the snow and throwing hot water on the cars.

I remember one night on their anniversary; I had snuck back in from my best friend's house, tipsy and slightly high from the adderral we decided to try.
I creaked up the stairs until I realized that they were too preoccupied, whispering amongst themselves, to have even noticed that I hadn't been in bed all that time.
They didn't hear me as I accidentally let the door shut harshly and tripped over the chair leg.
My mom was tipsy too and very sleepy as she said to my dad that she married him because he was kind and that showed how brave he was.

I thought about that now as I looked out my window and saw him throw a bucket of hot water on my car even though I wouldn't even go out today.
Still, he didn't know that, but even if he had, I think he would be in that same spot.
I suddenly understood what my mother had meant.
It was like no one ever was genuinely nice, because they were afraid.
It seemed dumb when I thought of it, that people were actually afraid to be nice, but then not so much.
They were afraid because they felt it made them too vulnerable or an easy target.
But I don't think my dad had ever been afraid of that.
Along with his kindness came his fearlessness.

He finally drove away and so I lied back down and told myself that it didn't matter how tired I was, I couldn't go back to sleep.

In dreamland I was met with his lips on mine and his fingers that skipped and tiptoed on my skin. I felt the heat and cupidity there and it was so ever so present. I had my eyes squeezed shut and my hands curled in the fabric of his shirt even though it wasn't real.
It wasn't real.
So why did the feelings feel so real?
I turned on my side as I heard dishes clatter loudly downstairs and wondered if maybe dreams were playing away in an alternate universe that existed out there.
His lips were tearing off mine like if he was biting softly into a Georgia peach.
His eyes were watching me and only me because I had finally caught more than just his attention.
I now held his thoughts, his epidermis, and most of all, his time.
Time, time, time that always was composed of short minutes between him and I.
There wasn't enough time but even then so much would occur with just glances between him and I.
At least it felt that way from my perspective but I know for a fact, that nothing had occurred within him.
Even in my dreams the time was so short, I would cut it off, like that, snip, because I hated being lied to.
Dreamland shouldn't have lied to me.
I had trusted in it for so long, it shouldn't have been deluding me.

That's what people in my everyday life did.

I heard more dishes clatter downstairs before I finally came down and saw my mother holding her keys in hand.
I made a face and instead of explaining the noise, she asked me what I had dreamt.
She could see it every time.
It was like those nights when I'd have a nightmare about tornadoes and giant owls that I would come into her side of the bed.
She would know every time and her eyes would remain closed but she'd smooth her hand over my head and tell me that dreamland was just a blink away.
I always believed that dreamland was with her, surrounded by her perfume and detergent and motherly scent.
It seemed like right when my body was curled up against hers, those owls would disappear and so would the tornado that threatened to take down my house.
I had believed that for long, that I stopped sleeping in my bed and sob when she would say that I had to face the ugly dreams too.
I didn't want to because then that meant there was no dreamland in my sleep for that night.

She observed me as she always did and said, you can tell me.

Of course I could but it was too embarrassing to explain to even myself.
It was the first teenage stereotypical dream I'd had and what was more embarrassing was that I actually felt the fervor in a dream but not in actuality.