Act V, Scene XI
Only in this dream was I able to have blonde hair. Wires peeked out from my ribs like tomato vines. See in my dream I was able to, finally, grow a garden. Though not for you. I did not see your grey face, ever, peering from the trellises. Not your gentler habits, like waiting to read the paper until just before you grew tired, went to sleep in our softly handled and shared bed. I studied for a time the limper vegetables: the squash already seemed too old. You plagued me, you should know, and for what? So that I could study instead your odder ways of worshipping the hours that exist in a day. The days do, they linger, like pacing around while the tea steeps or allowing my hair to remain long and modern. I never will talk to you again, of the mouse I found in my bedroom, adjacent to the mirror, or how I do call your name, still, like some sort of madness. Like I have stopped finding that peaceful and slow sort of ache that once existed within myself.
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Act V, Scene IV
I caressed so many thoughts until he left me dangling like the claw of a sweetest bear. I wore mountain ranges until they took on the outline of my own mortified body. Wore trellised maps, rendered in a particular shade of light, around my shoulders. This is how life worked. The trees were always blended with the sun and dizzy. I was always stealing moments of night and turning those moments into morning. Simply put, I was hungry. I wanted him to press his fingers against the plush insides of my cheeks, to permit me to touch the underbellies of his bones, if only for a minute. He fled with the Steller’s Jays that used to roost outside my kitchen window. His timing was always perfect. Or imperfect. Lines grew hazy after he left. Wires grew tangled as talons. I missed him. Language had betrayed me, but at least I knew I missed him. I was rarely logical, but in this way at least I knew. He had a bicycle. I never saw it, but it was real. Once, he told me this story, of riding through this turbulent city like an archeologist, how happy he thought he felt. Usually he complained of this city. I rode my own bicycle, it was invisible, to an equally invisible beach. There I waited.
