December in Dreams

a diary series

I dreamt of my childhood home again. It happens so often that I could probably compile a movie’s worth of these dreams. This time I was there with my dad and my grandmother. I always know in these dreams that the house is only half-mine, it is in the midst of being sold or it isn’t vacated—but I am always running back to it, telling everyone we should meet there. I am always sure that this is the only place I want to stay. To leave it would be an act of violence against myself.

There is always a collection of things in the closet of my room in that house. It varies. Last night there were many never-before-seen clothes and coats, and a wood shelf of sodas and a few spare wine bottles. I found an old beabadoobee shirt and a book written from her first singles. My dad and I laid in my single bed with the soft purple duvet and I told him how nice it was to see him; how the last time there was too much between us. time, resentment, the echo of his decisions and my hope being shattered in slow motion. I told him it was different this time, that my brother and I were so happy to see him. how i missed him.

I woke up realizing that I’ve moved out. Not only have I moved out but I’ve moved away. I live in another country, an ocean and time difference away. The house is not mine and hasn’t been for over ten years. But my dreams are stuck there. It’s sort of therapeutic and comforting to go back there most nights. Something of me still lives in that house.

—

I worked a double yesterday— 11 1/2 hours. it was okay enough. I stumbled into the bathroom this morning to find the faucet head had been taken off. I feel strangely similar to the headless faucet. I don’t have my usual ability to hold back or stop the words from spewing.

My mom tells me to write at work. My dad tells me the worst advice you can give someone is to follow their passion. I am trapped between a loving mother and a logical father—separated by oceans and borders yet still sending me the same reels from an ai generated guru. Parents are like the home of your childhood in that they live at the base of your spine. They are roots; infinitely intertwined despite efforts to cut ties and keep distance. I think the reason my father fought with me to tears in my teenhood was my refusal to let him forget. Even now, here I am. Refusing to not remember what lives under my skin.

a glamorous dinner out: fried cacio è pepe with spinach

I’ve been working a lot. I went from severely unemployed in body, mind and spirit to one of those camels who keeps going until it collapses. I don’t even know what to really write about because I haven’t had enough time for my work persona to wear off. I am a sliver of myself — you can look at me straight on but if I turn to the side nothing will be there. Part of this is also winter. I miss when the city was split open and gushing with noise. The juice of life staining my palms.

It’s only December and it feels like ages since summer. It’s always dark. It’s starting to get to me. And everyone else too, I think.

city of sleep

Winter is wearing us thin-

check for dust where

joy once lived and

learn a new medium:

self preservation.

I am at

work again-

the days pass.

Exhaustion sits

in my womb, old

blood and wrinkled

lips—It’s cyclical

the way I want and

want and run and run

.

You don’t realize the power

of words

until silence stops

biting your tongue and

you feel the exhale

bleed into one hundred

splotches of ink and opening your eyes is heroin. your fingers

are stained a deep, cerulean blue; you remember the book about the boysenberries and the wicker basket-

I spoke to someone who said

in poetry one finds freedom

But once the poem touches the page

it is solidified. lost of the pure possibility, no longer a vision but a concrete set of words.

I want to catch it before it hits the ground, where nothing has to be explained because nothing ever truly could be-