In my dream last night I was in the forest in Atlanta, and then I was in Maryland, with you, you were braiding my hair. We were in the basement and we were alone. In the trees everything was wet and full of water. I tripped down this rivulet, muddy and treacherous, and when I came to I was in the underbrush, smothered through by an unbearable thickness of green. Everyone was there, playing hookie. It was dangerous, eels were falling from the branches, and the eels were leeches, they would fall on a kid and just suck the life right out of him, gulping out all the blood in one sticky pulse. The neighborhood was changing. All the houses were three stories high, and ornamented, and painted the most flamboyant colors. When I got lost I took the bus and I ended up back here, at the cul de sac, and it was dark. I was so cold. I was knocking on the door. You opened the door and your hair was up, blown back, thick and golden, with bobby pins pinning the base. I wanted to look exactly like that. 

Most of my life I have spent asleep, by which I mean really most of my life I have been unconscious, that I am sure that over fifty percent of the time I have spent on Earth I have been in bed, on the couch, in the grass, on the floor, alone or not alone, dreaming or not dreaming, soaking up somnolence and staying put. Everyone who knows me knows this, it started early. In high school I was viciously absent from first period, I got home, I took a nap. I have had alarm clocks that shake the bed, physically, I have had alarm clocks that scream and wake my roommates up. They sometimes work but mostly don’t. My propensity to slumber is one of the things that has consistently provoked shame inside of me. When I think through my resentments (towards the world, towards my friends, towards myself) I catalogue: this person has more energy than me. This person is more capable than me. This person is more awake.

Last year I experienced a heartbreak that required spiritual intervention. I had to be asleep all the time, and when I wasn’t asleep I had to be hanging out with people. Constantly. I had two modes: innocence (princess in the tower, stuffed animal in tow, red haired and rosy cheeked, chest heaving) and experience (major tearage, that girl is a MONSTER, pump it pump it pump it and never let me go).  In order to survive, in order to really put a stamp on a protracted adolescent fixation with boyfriends, with a cure for a loneliness that both pre existed me and would outlive me, I had to start listening out for God. She came to the foot of my bed and sat on the edge and smoothed out my light pink teenage girl sheets. She said, willow, here is what my plan for you entails. My plan for you is you need to be a pop star. I said thank you I hear that, and I understand. And then I said, you know God, I always thought you made the most handsome man. 

I have a friend who I love who lives across the country from me. We both have hard knots in our stomach about our past, we are both defiant and oppositional, we both want love very badly. We both like having sex in a specific way, and we both like getting high. Sometimes we get on the phone late at night and experiment with both of those things: specific modes of having sex, specific modes of getting high. You know, God said, don’t beat yourself up. A woman lying down in the house attracts wealth. Yes, I replied, I know. I heard that in an AI-generated video actually. It took me a while to realize, though, because the bodies looked like mine. When I have sex online with this friend I sometimes get dizzy, itchy and sick, but only because I am pushing myself so hard out of anything physical. I am currently pulling out a syringe without a needle and mixing a powder into a milliliter of water and then I am pulling out a glass tumbler and pissing down its mouth. Sometimes the most important thing for me is to be shocking, like shocking alone could ensure affection or stabilize self image or fill my belly or keep me warm. There are eels falling out of the trees and everything is wet. I am pulling up a milliliter of urine into a syringe without a needle, and I am mixing a powder into it and I am shooting the laced urine up my ass. I am smiling at my friend and saying “Wow. That made me feel normal.” 

How are you doing? Oh, I’m just sitting around, biding my time, letting comparison be the thief of joy. Taking little cat naps in the sand and when the night comes, rolling over and soaking up another one. It made me feel good, in my own way, wrapping my legs around a goal post and pulling, crying gently into the dress, attaching myself barnacle to ship. Then I felt shy, soaking up sleep, staring up sleep all day and when the night came rolling over and kissing the corners of my mouth, which always felt especially sensitive. God was in my bed and her hands were on my hips. It was early May. She asked me what my hopes were for the Scorpio Full Moon. I said “Well. I hope it makes me feel normal.”

You were smoothing the skin back behind my eyes. We were in the house in Maryland. You said: we usually find what we are searching for in this life. So I had to be careful about what I looked at.  My fantasy of a lover was the fantasy of a hundred years sleep. I guess I was looking for an exit strategy, too. I said: I think I can end this experience if you come upstairs with me. You took me to the shower. You showed me how to wash my hair, with my head tilted back, so the soap wouldn’t get in my eyes. You toweled me off and led me to the third floor. From the turret I could see the trees, all those miles away, still wet, and shiny. You patted the bed. I got under the thick duvet cover and let the woven corner tassels drool through my fingers, all slinky and soft. I still felt the effect of the drug. The TV was on, the antennas askew, the box model on robot stilts. And I could make out static and a soft noise, like rain. You curled into my back and said, sing for me, little pop star. And matching the patter of the television, something came out of the back of my throat, delicate, and like a dream…