Strung together
strung out
She dreamt in long threads of relived trauma, eyes closed, body awake and remembering. Memories hurt. Her whole life flashing before her eyes, all those moments of terror and pain but slowed down enough so that this time she can really feel it. No body responses to take over to blur the edges and numb the hurt.
That tangled knot she carries around in her pocket, the one snarled with car accidents, rape, ski accidents, concussions, emotional trauma, is picked up gently by her psyche and spread out slowly and with great precision so she can really see it and even if she wanted to look away she could not. She can see that it is complete and whole, all her griefs and pains are not diminished by time or by wear, rather, they have been aged in oak and pocket lint and here they are, overtaking it all.
Dreams are tricky stuff. When you have one that is especially vivid, you might awake to ask yourself the question, “Was that real? Did that really happen?”
I answered YES every night this week.
