Suicide Dream

20Sep07

I woke today having killed myself, having walked through an incline of boulders and desert plants and sand. In the same way that time within dreams grows instead of progresses, in the same way that the dream-choices manifest suddenly but smoothly (a parting of tall grasses revealing a ballroom) — I found myself committing suicide, having just taken pain killers. It was the right thing to do.

But the drugs weren’t working so I pleaded with my friend to help me, to stab me in the side because I was too afraid of the physical pain. He refused at first, but I fought him, and maddened, he stabbed me and disappeared.

I knew then that I had to leave, and wanted to. The earth was suddenly near and deep, and it became necessary to die watching the sky. So fatigued and dizzy, I stumbled out beneath bright trees, then into a mountainous boulder field, trying to find a high place to watch the twilight. There were large rocks I couldn’t climb or mantle. An anteater followed me, and though I tried to shoo him away, he was persistent and unafraid. A kind of monkey appeared and its small babies popped up from the sand. I was too weak to move any further and fell into the sand. The sun went behind translucent clouds and became an opalescent inscription, it careened to its setting.

Regarding dreams of death, I have only been murdered before — woke startled and afraid, expecting to be shot by someone standing over me. Today though, I woke confused but calm, with a feeling that I had done some right thing.

After writing all this, I opened a book I had never read:

Perpetual Motion

1

You go to the mountains
stretch in the light aquariums
and wait —
stillness turns in its well

2

I touch your face
of rosewood and sap

the last vanished yellow
of sunset on the mountain

the first cellular light of a flank

3

Walking up the mountain
before an avalanche
you’ll find the sandstone
of the peak tattooed with waves

The summit moves with the tide.

— Mei-Mei Berssenbrudge
from Summers Move with the Tide (1974)

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Filed under: Composition, poetry, writing   |  3 Comments