M.alice in Dreamland

I know her real name but I'll call her M.alice.

M.alice doesn't fit under the mold of classic beauty. Her hair stands out in my freshman memories, the siren red highlights blaring out of the black locks. That's nothing special. Any chick can dye her hair in those bright electrifying hues. Not every chick has the guts to spike it into a mohawk, into a crimson and ebony razor crown.

I was a hopeless victim of Wishful Thinking as a child. I always wanted to believe my dreams could prophesize. Maybe then wings could sprout out of my back or I'd find the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

This week has been one strange leap down the rabbit hole.

The beginning of Winter Break was marked with a vivid dream of Ai getting abducted by Mro. I watched her getting beat up by MrO with a baseball bat. I was sitting in the backseat of the minivan as my mother drove away from the gruesome scene. Moments later Ai and I were talking in front of a house that was supposed to be mine but looked nothing like it. I was on my knees begging for forgiveness for ditching Ai during her abduction. Ai simply shrugged it off, saying how Mro let her beat him up and gave her an award for knocking him out so fast. I distinctly remember her boasting proudly, "That was my glory day!"

I dreamt my guitar teacher, who has been remarkably sympathetic and patient with my lack of practice, revealed her Hyde. I played the flamenco better than usual, hitting all the right notes for once. Instead of praise, she screamed about how I didn't play it like a Debussy piece. I retorted that Debussy never wrote a flamenco in his life and in response, she picked up her guitar and sent the whole thing crashing down on my head.

M.alice has never appeared in my dreams before, yet she appeared twice this week. She completely ignored me the first night. The second night, she was standing in my closet. Her hair is jet black now (she dyed over the red streaks long ago) yet in that dream her hair had golden streaks. She was wearing a complete school spirit get-up with blue and gold. Someday I will attend a school that does not have blue and gold (which usually ends up being yellow) as school colors, because frankly I am sick of yellow and blue spirit days.

M.alice pointed at the beige leather jacket of mine hanging on the coat hook in my closet. "Wear this. It's gold."

The rest of the dream was a murky mess where M.alice and J verbally abused K-idiot while I laughed on the sidelines.

I should have learned by now not to take my dreams so literally. Yet I stood in my closet yesterday afternoon, wondering if I should listen to my "M.alice-in-dreamland." I shamefully admit giving in to paranoia and wearing the beige jacket to my piano lesson.

Dear John

Dear John letter n. informal – a letter from a woman to a man, ending a personal relationship.

We are locked in this stalemate, two solitary kings on the battlefield, daring the other to move. Remember those roses? They still sit in that vase by the window. Their fragrance, so sweet and strong at first, has but disappeared. I'd imagine they're off with you, fucking with that girl in Paris, Milan, Tokyo, wherever.

I doubt you remember these roses. you wanted the crimson ones, read some shit in the magazines about red symbolizing love or some other sweet despair. i wanted white, pure and innocent like i'd never be. pink became our compromise, blushing under the sunlight next to the crystal windchimes.

I've played the script a thousand times, carrying imaginary conversations with you in my mind. i know all my lines by heart and i can recite every single word you'll say. You'd give me that wry smile of yours and ask me about the roses, i'd smile and ask why you've never come back.

farewell exits were never my style, so i end it here with these scentless petals, hand-picked one by one especially for you. count them, they equal to He Loves Me Not.

Stop and smell the roses sometime.

Flicker

so there you are in these photographs. there's that face with those chocolate saucer eyes, the cherry lips with that whisper of a smile of yours that seems to flicker like a flame. models never smile; how can they smile with that armor of glitter coated on their lips? you had it all down even before they found you, long before they exposed you, ripped you apart until that flame of yours smoldered to ashes and dust.