what i want is not rational

passion (not anger)
tranquility (not boredom)

sweetness (not saccharine)
gentle (not soft)

teeth (not bone)
seeing (not perspective)

rushing (not hasty)
secrets (not lies).

last night i dreamed i was at this outrageously fancy wedding, with no kids or husband. and at the table where i was seated was matthew mcconaughey. we were having a pleasant chat all through the meal and he kept pouring me glasses of wine. finally it was time to get up and dance and he asked me if i would dance with him. of course i said yes, but i was nearly sloppy drunk and apologized to him in advance for my terrible dancing skills. he laughed and took me in his arms and we started moving to the music, real ballroom-type stuff. i had on this long, rich scarlet red and gold dress with fairy sleeves and bare shoulders. he was in a simple tux. as we dnanced i started asking him questions about his work and life and he said something like, "nothing prepared me for meeting someone like you, christa". and i blushed and said, "i could have danced with anyone here tonight, you know!" and he said, "well, why did you pick me, then?" and i said, "because i always pick the celebrities that i know like to smoke the most pot," to which he laughed and laughed. after a few songs i asked him about hollywood weddings and how many of them seemed to be PR stunts or marriages of convenience and he agreed that that did seem to be the case with most. suddenly i was overtaken with a drunken case of the vapours so strong i excused myself to the ladies room, which was more opulant than even the fanciest hotel room i'd stayed in. i lay on a long blue velvet couch and closed my eyes for just a moment. when i opened them again, i realized i had been a fool to leave matthew mcconaughey alone out there, when he had seeemed so into me, and so many of the other women at the wedding had seemed so into him. i got up in a panic to rush back out, but when i pulled the door open i saw through the crack that several mobsters had stormed the reception, and most people had cleared out. these two gorrilla men were walking around the reception hall with baseball bats and metal rods and chasing two other mobster-type guys. matthew mcconaughey was standing by the door leading out, his face bloodied, using his knuckles to wipe it off his upper lip, looking at the blood briefly, and then turning his attention back to the violence at hand. i was trapped, the fight was happening between me and matthew mcconaughey and the exit. he spotted me and made a hand motion like, "what are you doing? come on, come on!" i swallowed hard, took a deep breath, waited until the two mob guys with the bats and rods were busy beating on the other two mob guys again, and ran for it. matthew mcconaughey caught me in his arms at the other side, and we burst through the doors to the parking lot. he was laughing and bleeding on my dress. i mashed my mouth against his and he pulled away quickly and said, "uh, christa? i don't know if you know this, but...i'm gay."

i'm in a large, old, drafty, unfamilliar house. it's late afternoon or looks like it by the light filtering in through the smeary windows. i hear a man's voice, ominous, coming from one of the upper rooms in the house and another noise that sounds awful and wet. i find a staircase and start climbing it, and his voice gets louder and deeper and i realize he's chanting bible verses. i find the room he's in, the door is open a crack already, and i kick it all the way open. he is standing there with a bible in one hand, held out as though he is at the pulpit, and he's chanting and chanting in a booming voice. in his other hand, he is crushing the throat of a small girl - maybe three years old. she is only hanging there, limp, though from the wet choking noises she's making i can tell she is still alive. i lunge at him, surprised to see i have a large rock in my hand already, and just as i get close enough to brain him with it, i realize the girl is me.

wake up from the noise of me shouting in my sleep.


later in the morning i dream i am in the livingroom and the dog is barking to be let in from the deck. i open the door and she won't come in, and seems focused on the area underneath our patio doors. when i lean down i see that some kind of animal has chewed some holes there and crawled into our walls. it is still busy at work, in fact, and bits of wood dust are wisping out of the holes as i watch. i step back inside and call leon to come see. he emerges from the basement and as we stand on the deck to see if it's rats or not, we discover it is in fact two old mangy cats. they crawl out of the holes they've dug in our home and stare at us. one is black and white and has medium-length fur, all matted and patchy. the other is a grey and white siamese-cross, and as i look closer at it i see that it is probably blind. suddenly the dog lunges at the cats, viciously. we are shocked as one cat retreats back into the hole but the dog manages to grab the blind siamese and begins shaking it violently in her mouth. the cat makes no noise but i'm screaming at leon to make the dog let the cat go. he says, "i don't know. there's something creepy and wrong with those cats." i keep screaming, "make her drop it! make her drop it!" and finally he makes a move to grab the dog by her collar, but it's too late. the dog rips the cat's head completely from it's body.

wake up again from the noise of me shouting in my sleep.

the worst married couple in the world

she made such a huge fuss in the mornings, the pots and pans having nothing to do with tea
still yowling and when pressed she would make-up her stories
and batches of pancakes:
whole grain.

the entire while this would happen and he would hover tentatively, forever in the way
and frustrating, but never near enough to solve her problems
or to stir the batter:
left lumpy.

she could love him in her strange way, her body uncertain but wanting to yield
an affront to liberation, torn between respect for herself
and release of shame:
simple tears.

but he never managed to find the way through that complicated morning maze she wove
angry for her mother's disdain and taking it out on dishes
clawing at the taps:
howling inside.

in wafts and tendrils his body moved away, quiet but still reassuring her in backward glances
(how can damage be undone in its making, he wondered)
and in free (stolen) moments:
found solace.

three hours ago:
scurrilous kisses left burn marks on my mouth; ribald love left bruises on my heart.

you creeping around my windows on rainy sunday afternoons, sniffing around my skirt resulted in
a crime of opportunity: war on my willing thighs.

you thief of sighs! your minimalist meetings, your condensed feelings,
remind me of someone i knew
a spring ago.

we went to catch tadpoles today

but there was a fence around the pond

with a sign that said:

"please don't catch the tadpoles, even with the intent to release them. the frogs are all endangered, which threatens all the herons.

and when the herons are gone what animal will thrill you with it's visage

standing in the muck-filled ditches on the sides of the freeway

while you speed past

crushing insects under-tire?"

i will not hold you

i will not hold you
to thick promises made
in secret compartments
dark
and full

unless the world somehow expanded within
and we found our feet
touching shyly, surprised to be
bare
and smooth.

i will not hold you
to sweet declarations made
in imaginary courtrooms, oaths sworn
indignant
and false

unless my dreams flew out-of-mind
and beat this reality down
so that lips and fingertips would flow
fast
and sparkling.

i scrawled confessions of my love all over an empty, crumpled box of cornflakes, with a black sharpie marker. over the course of the next few weeks, it migrated slowly around to behind the computer monitor, forgotten garbage. you came over one day, and in your search for a particular cd, found the box and read the confession, while i prepared tea and a tray of biscuits. my heart filled my throat as i walked in the room and caught you reading it. the tea pot chattering on a tray, cookie crumbs falling from the corners of my mouth. you looked at me like you already knew and wanted to set a date. i stuffed the cornflakes box in the trash can, and then i hid behind the fine bone china tea cup, smiling in release. words aren't real until someone else reads them.

i know what i want

you asked what i would like (not with your words but with your eyes) and i told you with a secret handshake these few things:
one (1) large chocolate milkshake with two (2) straws so we (two) can share
a single (one/1) hand of yours in mine still cold from the condensation on the glass as we walk five (.....) or six (******) blocks
to a warm room furnished sparsely in early salvation army decor
3 (three) hours on a threadbare chesterfield and those same three (3) hours spent with my head in your lap
(looking ceilingward, dirty bird)
while you read several (more than one) chapters from a book we (2) both love
and seven (lucky) kisses placed
on my (single) pair of eyes
the corners (2) of my mouth
the hollow (0) at the base of my throat
and the rest where you will.
once i was finished with telling you this (silent in that sea of hundreds) you said something else:
five (5) fingers slipped from mine
eyes (two) fell from gazing heavenward (into mine)
back to earth (sticky floors)
and lips (2) that moved "yes", but when your body (singular) slipped away
you said you were going (somewhere else) to
rest where (with who) you will.

will you give me what i want? an armpit to put my face in - wet cheeks - a dark scented place to cry? will you open your arms when my mouth bows down before you, a watershed of everything pent up in me, glass and wire, anger and fear? will you pat my hair when i do good or hold my face to keep me centered when i am falling out of touch? will you smack me out of love? will you kiss me when you hate the way i talk to you, just to shut me up? will you pull my hair when i ask you to, harder when i say harder? will you hold my hand while i am driving on the freeway, crying, away from the last place that dealt me a blow, even if it meant i would swerve, and scare you into thinking we were going to hit the median? and when we do, and your car is wrecked, will you laugh with me about the blood coming from my forehead after smacking it on the steering wheel and make up cockamamie stories with me about avoiding a french drunk driver, to sneak out of higher insurance rates?

will you put the kids to bed at a decent hour and will you find my peppermint foot cream and will you rub it in secret spicy places? will you work me up just to bring me down again or will you leave me behind while you travel on? will you smell my hair or any part of me when i have been hiding in a blanket cave for a week, nursing wounds you had no part in causing? will you let me fall on you, drunk, at 3am and stinking of cigarettes i'll deny smoking? will you take my kisses both chaste and sloppy and never pretend at your feelings? will my random passion scare you or pull you together, will the way i eat annoy you, will you know that when i use my foot to slam the toilet seat down in the middle of the night it means i've fed up of you leaving it up on me, will you help me put on gloves when my hands are trembling too hard in the snow, will you bring each cup of coffee as you would have an engagement ring and will you melt when my eyes swell with gratitude for small things? all small things, are they important to you as they are to me? will you find meaning in my prepositions, will you make up dreams about us, and write them in your secret online journal to your friends you've never met? can i be your pretend girlfriend even when i am your real girlfriend? can we have stories and drama and can we have long boring nights with reruns on the tube? will you let me take pictures of your body, all over, and will you show me your favourite things to do with playing cards?

when we're camping will you come with me to pee in the woods in the middle of the night, holding the toilet paper roll and shining the flashlight where i tell you to? will you help me rub anti-itch cream on the mosquito bites on my ass? will you scream if i catch my hair on fire but then when it's out talk about how cool it looked when it first went up and help me make blue flame from hairspray? will you go through my things and throw away the pictures i never talk about but you know that i hate? will you think i look beautiful, in the middle of the night, and my mouth is twisted in pain and my body is betraying me and my mascara turns my face to decay? will you fall down with me and scrape your knees and stay down, while i bleed beside you, counting blades of grass, and the ants i killed in my descent?

will you tell me what to do with myself when no one else can? will you cage me, but let me free when i need it, and will you lead or follow? and can you?