9/24/09

Where I Love You



BILLY'S DREAM OF AUTUMN:

Now he is dead and buried I have a fistful of the gravedirt in a jar underneath my bed, to keep him from coming back. No monsters for the monster home down there, I've sealed the doors and every Saturday burn sage and rub bright red agua guerra on the doorframes windowsills my temples wrists and heart. I know he is gone but still Scott Panther shows up in the dreams I brag about not remembering.

Last night Scott and his best friend Katie are visiting, studying abroad, imperial and occidental and rude at the restaurant. We are at the cafe in Berlin on Marianenstrasse and I am in town, have been for some months before. It's night, or it's winter so even midday is black. It's crowded but I see them from across the room and I sit down at their table. They are speaking to each other in English, quietly. I order myself drinks and sit at their table and wait for them to notice me, they do not. I eventually say hello to Scott and when he replies to me, sighing and cutting casually like landmines in my open mouth he does not break his gaze from Katie. Everything is in black and white. My skin is dirty, I'm grimy from having rolled around in the streets. I am desperate to get Scott to notice me, here. Look! I've made it here! First! Come back, Scott! He is angry at me for ruining his vacation by turning up. I realize in the dream that there is no one unturned rock which I cannot locate Scott underneath. Every shape becomes pointed ears a striped tail and paws with claws. Every boy-shaped hole is the one through which he appears and not (ever) alone. I wake up and stumble to the bathroom. My eyes look red from crying.

In the dream I sit at their table and get angrier and angrier at them ignoring me. I want to take one of the knives from the place-settings which are going unused since they don't speak German and are too scared to order in English and I want to take the knife and stab it into the wooden table, to get Scott's attention. He is describing to Katie a boy he had seen earlier that day who was checking him out. But I'm right here. I'm looking into the scene from outside the glass windows of the cafe. I gather my coat and people crowd the sidewalks around me. I want to bang on the windows knock him over I know you're gone but pay attention to me like I am to you. In the dream I am aware I'm asleep and I fantasize about a leapoard print coat I want to reduce you to leather make you into a covering and keep you cleaned folded and seasoned away in my closet, Scott, turn you into an old thing I once wore the way you have done to me. I wake up and stumble to the bathroom. My eyes look red from fury.

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