dreamland

twenty-nine

I think I had enclosed myself in my own home as if it were a jail cell.

The blinds were always tightly shut and over that, my dark blue curtains covered what managed to come through the cracks.
I hadn't seen the sun in two days.

All I saw were your eyes in between dreams. They seemed like owl's eyes or wolves eyes, something predatory.
And in the dreams I think I saw him.

His eyes were like stars or like leaves on the tallest of trees.
I couldn't reach him.
He didn't want to speak to me.
I don't know that I wanted to either.
I mean, shouldn't I be angry?
I don't think that even in dreams did I know what I would say to him. It made me feel like I was still in high school, like I hadn't ever left it. I was still having issues deciding what I felt and what I would do next about it.
But still I sought him in between dimly lit mysterious dreams. That was perhaps the only head of starlight, moonlight, highlight of my hidden days.

My best friend came by on the third day and I saw that she needed me.
She needed me almost as much as I needed her after you.
Her usual jubilant eyes were down and upset. They reminded me of the sky in Alaska during those dark dark twenty four hour days.

She kept saying she hated her, she hated her.

I held her blindly. The blind were consoling the blind. What did I know about helping? I couldn't even help myself to get what I wanted.
It had happened as so; my best friend started to feel and feel and feel.
When all the time before she really hadn't been. It was as easy as one, two, three and a, b, c. She would kiss so many girls and come home smelling like strawberries and daisies and liquor which were all scents from three different girls in one week.
She would feel fine, actually more than fine. The delirious, lewd longing in their eyes was what fueled her. It fired her the fuck up. It made her laugh louder and dance easier and sleep better. So she hadn't known what to do when she started to feel.
She turned left and right and left again.
Until she chose to do what the fool does, she trusted her. In between shared splifs and kissed paper cuts and lips on skin, she told her she loved her.

And when she did, the apple cider smelling girl, pushed away and untwined their legs and fingers. Then she disappeared.
She never said it back or laughed in her face or asked why.
She just faded into the background of many other girls that had known my best friend's name and color of eyes better than they knew theirs.
She blended in and made herself seem like one of them even though she was not.

She cried and said, I take them back, I take them back.
She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand and said, I mean, fuck, I wasn't sure of it either, I just blurted it out, without like meaning.

I watched her and nodded my head.
Her face crumbled once again and her eyes went back to wetting my shirt.

No, I don't think it was something you just blurted out without at least an ounce of feeling.

There was certainly something lingering, sprouting in there to make you say those words. A thought, a maybe, a dream.
It couldn't have been just something you blurt out. I think only kisses are blurted out.
That night there wasn't time to tell her about what you had told me.
It had already been too much about my problems.
It was all me, me, me, me.
It was time for her.

So she slept over and well neither of us slept. We both just lied there and counted stars that actually weren't even glued onto my ceiling like they were on hers. Still, I could see the sky and space. I think I always could. I always could because it's where I wanted to be.
She didn't cry or speak or sigh.
She was very silent like the morning of January the first.
She was hardly the girl to really cry.

I remember asking her why once after she fell and skidded the side of her face rollerblading in the park. Her two fish tails looked still intact but her face was bloody and scratched up.
She hadn't worn a helmet or knee pads at all because it was way more fun for her that way.
I came to her and asked her if she was okay as I looked at her face in disgust and curiousness. We were both six years old and god I know that would have made me cry all the way home.
But she wasn't crying, her eyes were just wide as she stared at a little boy with a pink kite.

I shook her and said, doesn't it hurt, doesn't it hurt.

She turned to me and said, a lot.

She looked back at the boy and I said, then why aren't you crying.
She still didn't look at me but responded to my annoying questions.
Because after I'm done crying my face will still hurt, she spoke clearly.

We both stared at that pink kite coloring the sky until my mom came to help out.
My mom kept saying she was so strong, so strong.
I think the right word was so smart, so smart. Even now I think that she would have the same reply. Even after she cried.
The truth is that regardless of the times I've cried, it was true, my heart still hurt after.
It never did stop me though, because I think I am way more helpless than she has ever been.
Maybe I needed her more than she needed me. Maybe I was just someone she smoked doobies with and laughed with at nightfall and she shared her gummy bears with.
I'm not sure.
But I still hugged her and said, you're so strong, you're so strong.