after I wake

I woke from dreams that stuck together like wet tissue paper.
A mountain of snow.
A road of sand.
My sister.
A car ride.
And you.

From across a hallway, standing in separate rooms, you asked me a question.  Laughed your dark chocolate laugh at my answer. It hit me as it does in life; a mix of richness, of right and wrong, and bitter edginess.  
Leaving your audience unsure if they want more or if they have had more than enough of it.

In dream scape your house was flooded.
In dream scape you wore brown.
In dream scape you mirrored me for a moment then vanished into the background.

I looked for you as I left.
But all I found were photos of you set among the potted plants on her dresser.  Photos she had cartooned.

The next 2 dreams I dreamt of my old house on Hollywood. It will filter through my dreams all winter long as it has for the past 15 years.  

Something about November triggers its appearance.  I honestly don't know what.  The house haunts me in a way the failed marriage never could.  It asks me to reconsider my worth.  Draws me back to see if my life could fit inside its thick walls and empty bottles.

It pulls me back behind wavy panes of glass, beneath heavy wooden craftsman beams.

After I wake I lay in my own bed sorting the soggy, dissolving layers of dream. I see how your house would lead me back into *mine. 

The same dark shadows that chased me there walk around you sniffing the air.

Perhaps that is why you stand so still.  Why you don't make the moves you know you should.  You are hiding hoping the darkness doesn't see you.

In dream scape you were holding a tool box hunting the leak flooding your house. 

I was trying to clean up before you crossed the hallway so you wouldn't see how much damage the rising water had done in your child's room.  Water lapping at a white bedspread kissing it with yellow stains.  A puffy pink coat pulled up dripping and soiled off the flooded floor. I was trying to move what I could find & lift to the higher ground of the closet's top shelf. 

In dream scape the Hollywood house waits for me to return.  It calls me back.  It tumbles me, shakes me, tricks me, traps me there until my dream screams break between the dim of sleep and wake and BC pulls me to him whispering, "It's just a dream, Sweetness."  

But your house simply waits for you to voluntarily walk back through the door.