8.12

I have that peculiar taste in my mouth, the iron-red tang of waking up after a bad dream, almost bloodied by the fear and paranoia of social anxiety induced so strongly in the dream that I carry it into the waking world, and I suck my teeth of it. I wonder what she dreams about. I can quickly realize that I do not know a particular she to wonder over, but rather every she for whom I have wondered and wonder invades my thoughts in sequence, a flood, a rising tide, a slapslapslap of crashing waves bowling me over and driving ideas up my nose until I can taste the salty grit of teary oceanwater thoughts mixed with the red-iron.

She dreams about finding the right connecting flight to paradise and being ushered through security. She dreams about opening the door to find a new cat. She dreams about piecing together the map fragments to an ancient mystery in the basement. She dreams about a friend she hasn't seen in years. She doesn't dream about me; she dreams about whatever she wants, and always invariably something pure and enviable because she doesn't exist except as a construct of my own dreams, but waking, no nightmare of mine but daydream.
And she is so good at dreaming that she will never dream back. Why would she? The red-iron has soured in my mouth with the salt to make an acrid and alkaline bite, cutting away at my tooth enamel, darkening my day. She doesn't need that. She doesn't need me.

[this went a sad place, but you always knew it would]