I dreamt last night about strange things.

—

I was coming out of this valley road up onto
a hill which stretched out up a slope.

It was covered in a blanket of fog and small
trees, void of leaves, twisting and contorting
up.

The smell of petrichor reached me as I laid
down on mildew grass. I was with a girl, one
I haven’t seen in years who I had once
loved.

We stared up at the stars and yet I wanted
to go forward up the hill. I wanted to go
towards the twisted trees, to the moors of
wild horses.

She wanted to stay, telling me “I don’t want
to go.” I was left to make up my mind and I
stayed. Why did I stay?

I saw a child and wondered if it was mine.
Young and beautiful but previously
unknown. There was another child but I
could not see it. What was going to happen
to these children? What am I meant to do?

I wondered if I was meant to be with this girl,
to raise these children but I did not know if I
was wanted. I thought about paying to
support and being there for the children but
would I be welcome to.

I saw horses walk through the fog, calling
me toward them. But I stayed, I wanted to
stay. Torn between two poles.

—

In the grounds of a strange manor, with
bridges and towers, I met a woman. She lept
over a balcony to grab a runaway necklace,
and I held her to stop her from falling.

She was beautiful. I wanted to kiss her but I
was afraid. Would she kiss a woman? Would
she want to kiss me? I looked into her eyes
and she came closer, thanking me and
kissing me as if we had been together for
years.

I knew her, through some other life or
dream, we had met and were familiar. We
walked the grounds, into the main building
and up to the watchtower. We walked
through tight, narrow staircases looking out
of porthole windows, making our way up the
turret.

We were no longer alone, met with families
and school kids, walking through the
winding staircases within the turret and
heading out to a corridor.

The woman and I walked down and up,
following the queue through double doors. A
group of school kids waited to go back
down. Young boys saw her and slapped her
arse with a rolled up newspaper. They
laughed amongst themselves. But why and
for who?

I came up to the perpetrator and told him to
stop. All of them looked at me like I had
snapped the fabric of their existence. It was
as if I was watching the faces of boys who
wondered why they were being punished. I
can now hear their train of thought. “Why? I
didn’t do anything wrong?”

I followed after the woman.

—

I walked down school corridors following the
girl. I hadn’t been to school in years. And yet
I was back here. I didn’t belong then or now.
She lead me into a science room, to the
front and sat down at a table. I sheepishly
followed and sat down opposite her, both of
us at opposite corners.

I watched as she quickly wrote in her books,
studying subjects I did not know. I just sat
there waiting for the clock to end. It was
what I knew to do. She worked so diligently
and yet I was out of water.

The teacher came along and spoke to her.
They turned to my direction and the girl
vouched for me. I don’t understand what
she said but I was allowed to stay.

I sat in a different uniform to everyone else,
the logo across my heart different despite
our blazers all the same.

I sat and waited to wake up. Why did I want
to leave?

—

I wasn’t asked to do anything, no one made
me do anything. If anything I made myself.
Only expressing anger when I was “able” to,
despite wanting to express more.

I waited to wake up again, hoping to wake
up as something new even thought nothing
will change me unless I change myself.