My Dreams Make Me Think I Am Not Ok Lol

I have dreams about my friend burning in a glass room that I can’t get into.

I watch her beautiful blonde hair go up like it’s coated in petrol. I don’t know why I dream this. I wake up grateful.

I have dreams that I’m buried alive in Italy. The weight of the box is pushing on my chest. Every exhale it’s like sand fills in around me. I have to inhale really deeply to push it off. I wake up and smack my head on the bunk bed above.

I have dreams where I get ‘found out’. That everyone sees through me. Sees that I’m not nice. It’s like a hurricane crashing through my friends and family, like the little house of ‘nice’ I had built from paddle pop sticks and clag glue is flattened. Everyone is yelling at me, everyone is red faced and crying with anger, it’s like they’re dripping fire into the ground. I don’t know how to fix it and I want to leave. I don’t know why I have this dream. Someone with crystals and healing hands told me that it’s because I carry my mums sadness. That I don’t think I could be important to someone. I wake up a little scared. Like maybe I have been found out. Like I am unimportant.

I have dreams where I can hear my brain draining into my spinal column. Like the guttural gurgling of the last part of an emptying bath. I can’t hear anything else. As it drains, I feel myself sinking into the bed, it feels like someone is pressing my shoulders into the mattress and it’s moulding around me. I can’t breath or move. I wonder if I’m in a coma and someone is performing CPR. I wonder if this is my life now. I wake up calling out for Jack.

I have dreams where I can’t run, punch or yell. Like my actions are swaddled in a heavy doona, like my life is muffled. Muzzled. I wake up and my pillow is wet.

I have dreams where I am screaming at my Mum. We are both crying and we know it’s the end. We’re standing on opposite sides of the same room and we each have a door. We know one of us has to leave first but we stand there, crying at each other, breathing heavily. I wake before one of us leaves.

I have dreams where I shoot Jackie Chan in the foot and then eat a horse pizza. I wake up just, like, wtf.

I have dreams about fields of yellow flowers and laying in the sun, on a big gentle hill with Bobby. We’re talking about writing and smiling at the sky. There’s music and it feels like we have been for a swim. My skin feels salty and brown. It’s warm and I wake up easily.

I have dreams about trying to reconnect with Elliot. We end up in the same place we were in Peru. Drowning. Helpless and sad. They feel real and I think they’re memories that have got all blended up between sleepless nights and days I wish didn’t happen. I wake up weighted and far away.

I have dreams about being late. I’m days late for really important things; my friends wedding. A work meeting. An expensive appointment I can’t afford to reschedule. Realising that I am too far away to get there on time. I wake up clenching my teeth. A headache rattling around. Those days are hard to wake up.

I have dreams about painting. My hair is longer and I am healthier. I kind of dance across the canvas. I am bare footed. I don’t seem to have anyone but that feels nice. I wake up confused.

I have dreams of flying. I jump off a roof and spin, flip and weave. I wake up and want to go back to sleep.

I have dreams of being curled up in Tom. I’m 14 and nervous. I feel little and tired when I realise I have 12 years to unravel before I get up. I wake up and feel old.

Sometimes I don’t dream at all. I just sleep. Curled up in Jack. I wake up to an alarm and I go to work. I make it on time. I don’t shoot anyone in the foot, or eat any horse pizza. I don’t fly there and I try not to leave any rooms for the last time. I feel nice.