✤, horror movies scattered across a lifetime
◈.◎━━━━━━◎
Rarely do I dream of loved ones.
For some reason my subconscious would rather fill my nights with poisonous faces of the past rather than offering me a comforting rest.
Yesterday I went to see an old colleague of mine that held a stand with our boss for the art shop I used to work at a few months back. I greeted her enthusiastically, introducing my mom and aunt by my side to her, promising her a lunch next week. When I bid her goodbye and moved away without greeting my old boss (who never liked me and who I never liked- and was busy with clients), I immediately felt ashamed and guilty. For that, my mind plagued me with a nightmare of me still working at the shop, my two bosses clicking their tongue at me, giving me the lamest of tasks while pushing me to a dark corner. I woke up with a gasp, unable to breathe and my nose bleeding. When I fell asleep again around 5AM, the nightmare continued until I woke up, as it always does. Like a well deserved punition for my earlier lack of manners.
Most of the time I will choose to fly instead of fight, to forget instead of face things- it's probably how little old me succeedingly kept the abuse at home for herself for all these years. With that, though, came the punishment of having blurred memories of almost every thing. People's names, what happened that year, what I felt back when my old friend and I fought for the last time and why we even did. I feel guilty also, about forgetting so many things, it feels wrong for me to just blur it out, when it was so painful and vivid for the me that went through it all. I'm sorry to her.
Sometimes, I will be victim of the same scenarios nights after a specific nightmare, like my mind not allowing me to rest until I watch the rest of the horror movie.
My dreams have never been crystal clear either, the faces are always blurred, hidden away from me. I know who talks to me in them, but I could not tell you what they looked like doing so. My subconscious gives away specific roles, and picks an actor from a waiting room filled with people whose face I long to forget, or ones I've last seen when I was 30 centimeters shorter.
Rare are the dreams with my loved ones by my side. I've always felt it was unfair, that one minute of me, thinking of that one person I dislike during that one day, will entail a restless night of a movie featuring them.
Why am I not allowed to see a friendly smile in my sleep, feel a kind specter's hand when my eyes are laid to rest? Is my own heart so cruel that it wants to force me to dream about the people I strive to forget when I'm awake forever?
I do not want to dream of him anymore. I wish my mind would carry my loved ones' kindness to me in my sleep instead.