post-apocolyptic train station in Random Thoughts

the last bits of my dream are slipping away, so i will start with the end and move back.

My final words as i woke,

“I need to be frank with you,” (he inserts a poor pun, which i love) “The lifestyle i lead is a free one” ha, even in my dreams…

I left a large gym with people of all shapes and sizes, they had been doing a performance of sorts, all the children. They had been showing off their ‘president’ and other executive cabinetry.

I was sitting near a man. Pockmarked, strong, older. His arms were lightly touching me, like when you are showing “this is my woman/man.” I realize the person i really want to be with is across the room and i want this man to not touch me, so i need to mention those final words. But before i travel back in time, flashes

we are in a school building hallway and the window is broken. i go to sit near the edge and can see that the broken edges have been painted different pastel colors and students names are written tiny along the sharp curves. i break one off and lookout onto the trainyard. i ask the man if he knows that i live in that big white building down the corner of the way

i had a conversation with some younger people, telling them that “yeah, i used to live in that damp scary basement. mostly i tried to just keep my stuff there and sleep, but it was super scary. i was right in the tiny room right before the hallway curves, you know, the place where all the nightmares begin. They were in awe of all the places i’d lived.

all mu scariest nightmares from when i was a child. crawling in the walls, purposefully toward whatever is the scariest thing that could ever be. to me at least.

but now, i guess i live in the while house at the corner of the trainyard… in a place where everyone has come together because there is no one else.

i remember at the performance, all these small children, Black, maybe even with parents recently from Africa. they were dancing and it was a delight. they opened their palms and were high fiving everyone as the ran past. i felt such joy. it felt like the kind of joy that opens up your heart completely. the kind that comes after facing great adversity.

somehow. somehow, and i can’t remember what happened. i met him. i don’t know who he is or any details about his face, but he is the one i wanted to be with.

but like i was as a younger Carmen, once i met someone else who paid attention to me, i was easily diverted. the pockfaced man. i needed to have that frank conversation with him. i needed to tell him that i did not want his hands on me, that while i really enjoyed flirting with him, the person i wanted to be with was across the way. this man was going to get the whole spiel- sex positive, relationship agreements, a little about the how and why of my inner workings. then, i was going to see the man i really wanted to be with and be honest with him. Hope that my biggest fear..... rejection.... was not on his lips.

sounds like a dream that amalgamates my life up to now. shifting from hardship (apocalypse) to open heart (performance), scary basement of nightmares to the white house, from shifting energy quickly to another person to open communication.

I woke, at 7:30 am this morning, after 10 hours of sleep, with these words on my dream lips,

“I need to be frank with you. The lifestyle i lead is a free one.”