Nightmare

I had another nightmare.
I walked into a cathedral. A large octagon room with stained glass windows on each faded yellow wall. Our family was gathering. I watched them filter in and I watched your brother shake hands with the pastor. I was sitting next to a window beside grandpa- our very dead grandpa, that no one else seemed to see. Why would they see him? He died that day that his head hit the concrete. He wasn’t supposed to be here- I noticed several wooden boxes in the center of this octagon room. Wooden boxes on wheels… caskets. Three-person caskets. I asked grandpa why we were here. He said we were here for your funeral… but you’re already ashes, just like grandpa. I tried to explain to him that we already had a funeral for you. But it was time to do the casket viewing. I stepped up to the first casket and there you were… but you were a wax sculpture… you were maybe 9… and you weren’t alone. Your brother was beside you, and grandpa was beside him. Wax sculptures that looked like they were just sleeping. The next casket was the same arrangement but you were 25- the same age you were when you died. The next, you were older. Confusion. I felt bile rush up my throat. I felt those yellow walls spin. My unconscious brain knew you would never be older. I panicked, looking around the room for your brother. Where was he? Why had he vanished? Why was he in the caskets???
I woke.
I slept.
Your mom and I took your brother to work. He was happy, he seemed to be doing well. But something felt off. He’d left his pillow in the car. I noticed brown stains near the edges. I thought maybe it was bed bugs. Maybe it was just because his housing wasn’t as stable because he was just getting stable. But as I unzipped the pillow the stains were deeper, covering every corner. The pillow was wet. I felt my heart sinking, I open the center of the pillow and found the ruins of a dead mouse. A mixture of bones and liquified decay. I gathered those fragile little bones in my hand and wept as I thought about your brother.
I woke.

Last week your mom told me he tested positive for heroin again. Maybe it’s a premonition, maybe it’s just anxiety. Maybe it was too good to be true and they will have to fill that death date on your shared tombstone soon… Maybe this life is just one big nightmare I wish I could wake up from.

I have had the same recurring nightmare several times a week for over 12 years now. In the first part of my nightmare, I'm experiencing a lovely or average day with one of my loved ones. In the second part of my nightmare, we fall asleep (in the dream) and wake up separately in a maze. We're trying to meet in the middle, which is not always successful because we're being chased by something I've never actually seen entirely. If we are fortunate enough to meet in the middle, there's a long hallway leading to a red blinking EXIT sign. It leads to double doors - like school doors. I always die in that hallway. I often see my loved ones die in that hallway. Only four or five times has someone laid their hands on the door, and only one has opened it.

The maze, the creature chasing us, and the loved ones all change. Sometimes, it's even been children or pets. After years of watching my loved ones die, it helps me appreciate them in a way I can't really explain.

I'm used to nightmares. They're usually the same ones: these cyclical, repetitive things that leave me stuck feeling like a victim and waking up fighting. But last night in my dreams, everyone I care about took turns telling me why I'm an awful person who doesn't deserve to, and never will, accomplish anything or be happy. I woke up sobbing so hard my chest hurt. Now I wish I could crawl into a hole instead of going out to interact with the world.

you are soft like a layer of kisses. a dream tangled in fright. like some destiny of pain. that I am deserving of hatred. which you choose to digest as love. and I am blessed by blood of your kisses and the fears of falling.

and I'm scared, if we fall in love. I will murder you.

Every nightmare I have centers around a Groundhog Day-esque set of events where I end up failing, then restarting and trying something new, then failing again, over and over until I eventually manage to shock myself into consciousness.

Sometime I wonder if my life isn't just one continuous nightmare from which I haven't figured out how to wake myself.

I'm stuck on the fringes of a nightmare right now. My ex tried to commit suicide, buy my mom called 911 on him. After being taken to the emergency room he was arrested for having alcohol and drugs in his system, which violated the probation he was on for public intoxication. Now he is in jail, and trying to convince my family to pay for him to get out.

I want absolutely nothing to do with this guy. I regret wasting two and a half years of my life on him. Not that I want bad things to happen to him or anything, I just wish that I could get away from him!

I hate this so much. I really just want to scream.

I had a dream that you had lied to me. I found out that you had a boyfriend, who was a complete drunken asshole. I didn't even know what to say when I found out. I just kind of sat there, with you next to me, while my best friend tried to make me look on the bright side. I don't remember what she said. I'm not sure how there could be a bright side to finding out that your boyfriend has a boyfriend. I remember thinking that I must not be good enough for you. Here I was wanting to be close to you, and now I saw why you were so distant.

I think maybe the worst part was that your boyfriend reminded me so much of my ex. I think I would have been able to handle it better if he were a nice guy or whatever.

Now I feel really lonely.

i fucking hate nightmares. There is no way in hell i would be up this early normally. You wake up with beads of sweat on your skin. You can't go back to sleep because there is still the lingering taste of fear on your tongue. I can't remember the last time I had a nightmare. It wasn't even a particularly bad one, just weird.

For so long, I lived a nightmare. Think of a lab animal, something forced into a situation they don't understand. Now think of the ultra unlucky ones, with the absolutely horrifying tests run on them. Think of anything, a rat cat dog rabbit anything, stripped of it's skin. Completely flayed. Drugs pumped through it to keep it alive. A billion nerve endings exposed to the burning air, tounge lolling because the pain won't let a single part of it be still, lidless eyes rolling and twitching. Imagine how that feels like. That's what I felt like. I had no skin, everything hurt. I felt the fear and anguish I see in dogs when they're hurt or trapped, the rolling panicked eyes, with nothing but pain and fear and desperation in them. I used to see that in the mirror.

God, this is getting emo.

I was trapped. I couldn't be myself. Granted, some of my ideas on what exactly that was were fruity, but I didn't know that, I didn't even get a chance to try. I tiptoed in my own house. My dad was constantly around the corner, in the doorway, listening in and spying, ready to release wrath. Home, where I was supposed to feel safe, where I was supposed to love being, was a cold prison.

As far as I am concerned, I never had a home until I was nineteen, and first moved to Indy. I lived places, in houses, but not homes.