anxiety dreams.

Amanda and I have just moved into a new place, the top floor of a huge beautiful old building, it’s in a weird part of town but I’ve never had so much space and that’s thrilling. We finish moving in at 10pm on a Friday night, and are waffling as to whether that’s too late to invite everyone over for a housewarming. I’m being especially indecisive, and seeing that behavior in myself irritates me.

You answer my text from earlier in the day and say: hey, sid, it’s been fun, you’re rad and we’ve had a great run of it, but icymi I’m moving to New York in the morning.

I ask why, attempting to sound calm, and you respond: there’s this girl there who makes me feel like I’m on fire. 

I ask if I can see you tonight before you go, and run out of the house to meet you in a bar I’ve never been to before. At first I can’t find you, and run into Andres, who wants to roll my cigarettes even though he doesn’t smoke. I find you, and we are about to head outside for cigarettes and talking, and as I get my things I think about what I could possibly say:

I am completely and utterly in love with you, and the only demand I want to make of you is that you be here with me, that you not suddenly disappear, that your presence in my life continues to bring me joy and confirm that you too really and truly give a shit. 

I wake up before I hit the door, my Saturday morning hangover creeping over me, rubbing regret against my temples. I want to get back to sleep to know what happens.

I want to know what look happens to your face when I tell you exactly all the dumb romantic shit you make me feel, how I want to sell everything I own and live in a van with you, how I want to get drunk with you forever, how all the emotions I have about you make me want to have weirder and weirder sex, how you make me want to write a hundred books and learn how to give a tattoo in someone’s living room. 

I do not get to say these things, or see your reaction. I go back to sleep and am rushing to get to a performance venue, where I am underprepared for an elaborate routine. I am running late and take a cab, but as we approach the venue (a gigantic school), he starts asking me questions and speeds past our destination. He locks the doors, he is going to kidnap and rape me, but I somehow get my door unlocked and open while we fly down a busy street. I jump out, onto the dirty grass on the side of the road. He swerves to try and hit me, repeatedly, but eventually gives up. I get his license plate–some strange vanity plate that’s a pun on Jordan Almonds–and as night falls I walk back to the school, calling 911. 

The man on the line at 911 doesn’t believe me, or doesn’t care, and refuses to send any police officers to me, or medical staff to see if I’m okay after my jump from a fast-moving vehicle. I give up, and navigate through a massive crowd of children leaving the school and adults entering it, and finally get backstage.

It’s extremely dark, and Cassandra and Josh are waiting there for me. I realize I have forgotten all my props, in addition to not quite knowing the plan, which involves fake, black-light-glowing milk coming from my breasts in some kind of Madonna (Ciccone) and Child type deal in the midst of an elaborate dance number. I am freaked out and devastated and bleeding, but I start looking around for what we have to work with to make this show go on.