oh gross

i had a dream that i stabbed myself in the back 6 times.
every time i did it was a sharp pain and i would bleed but the blood was
not dripping or seeping, it just was there.
i stabbed myself like they do in the show rome when they
really want someone to die.
but i wasn't dying, i would just feel weak
and walk around for a bit.
i finally called 911 and they came
and in the dream i told my sister after i called 911
i don't remember anything until i came home.
the 911 call was weird. i was very calm
but had a hard time explaining that i stabbed myself.
i wanted them to know that it wasn't out of desperation
so much as it was me wanting to know what it felt like
to stab myself.

they bandaged me up and i could see my wounds
when i pulled back the gauze. i thought that i must have lost a lot
of blood and wondered where my pain killers were: why didn't the doctors give me any?
the wounds were thin and long, like i was a deep cutter
and not a stabber.
it's really disturbing me to write about this. more than
it was to dream it, i wasn't so afraid in my dream.

havilah came over and i told her about what i did
and asked her not to tell anyone.
she didn't.
she wore a navy dress from the gap, a long one
that i had wanted but couldn't afford.

i pulled the dress on over my bandages in the bathroom
at my mom's house.

my mom told havilah not to shop at the gap anymore because
havilah was on an anti-consumerism rant.


i was at target and tracy our bartender
at the library who i went to art school with
worked there and i bought some stuff exchanged some stuff
with sara.
then tracy asked me if i wanted to change the world photo
that was near the register
but underneath the photo there was a big mess or leftover spaghetti
food so i cleaned that up and looked through a book of photos
and the one that was up was from india and that's the one i kept because it
was the only one that was like the world.
it was on a bridge with different kinds of people doing different kinds of
things and some were looking at the camera. it was very graphic and broken up but still one image.

then i went to the mall and drove like a maniac
and saw women with their children in strollers and
found some jewelry and asked a woman if a ring was hers and she said no.

rick and joe and patrick and sierra and susanna and mike and jen
and pretty much a lot of people who i know were at the beach outside of a store
they were laughing around a campfire and having fun.
patrick told me astory about how mike dyed part of his hair white
and when i saw mike it looked like he had cotton balls burrowed
at the ends of his hair moving outwards so it looked like he'd tipped
his hair in white but it was fluffier
of his hair so i thought that was funny and i started laughing and
laughed so hard that i had to go out to the hall
and laugh
and everyone inside wondered what i was laughing at but i couldn't
tell them because i didn't want to hurt mike's feelings.
some girls walked by in beach towels and looked at me like i was crazy.
i couldn't stop laughing.