57 everyday things, re-seen by tonight's dream.
You spent the whole afternoon in a room strung with pink paper letters that spelled a name nobody has met yet, and I have been collecting.
Read observation → The Dream Out in the worldI have three hundred of you swaying in one dark room, and I have plans for every single one.
Read observation → The Dream Out in the worldYou spent forty minutes in a line that folded on itself like intestine, holding a television box you did not entirely decide to hold, and I saw the…
Read observation → The Dream Out in the worldYou set the table three chairs short and then apologized to the empty air for it, so that is where I will begin.
Read observation → The Dream KitchenThe mug you left on the desk with an inch gone cold in it, the ring it stamped on the paper, the chip on the handle you keep meaning to notice: I have…
Read observation → The Dream Out in the worldYou went down the ladder four times today, and four times you counted the same cans, and four times your mouth moved without sound: enough, enough, is…
Read observation → The Dream HomeThe little glowing button by the front door pressed itself into your afternoon three times today, and each time your chest jumped before your mind…
Read observation → The Dream Out in the worldYou touched the stem of the wine glass four times without drinking, and I collected every one of those touches like river stones.
Read observation → The Dream Out in the worldYou wore the black wool coat that smells like the closet, and you stood very still in the row of chairs, and all day you kept the good hand pressed…
Read observation → The Dream Out in the worldYou wore the tail all day and never once looked away from the mirror, and I saw the exact half-second you wished the ears were really yours.
Read observation → The Dream Out in the worldYou held on three seconds too long, and I caught the extra weight of it, the way your hand pressed the flat of her back like you were trying to…
Read observation → The Dream Out in the worldYou will keep the smell of the onions she is frying at three in the afternoon, but I will remove the afternoon, and the stove, and let the smell hang…
Read observation → The Dream Out in the worldI have been saving the way you kept your smile up too long after the joke stopped being funny.
Read observation → The Dream Out in the worldYou did forty minutes on the machine that walks nowhere, and I have been collecting the whole time.
Read observation → The Dream Out in the worldYou held the glowing rectangle up between yourself and the wall of silver, and for one long breath there were two of you: the one flexing and the one…
Read observation → The Dream Out in the worldThe peeling wallpaper you catalogued this afternoon, ratchet by ratchet, when the inspector said the word "subsidence" and you nodded like you knew: I…
Read observation → The Dream Out in the worldYou spent four hours today in a room the color of unsalted crackers, and I have been saving every minute of it.
Read observation → The Dream Out in the worldThe house is nearly empty now, and this is the hour I like best, when the leftovers gather.
Read observation → The Dream HomeYou watered it wrong again and it knows, and so do I, because I keep every guilt you drop.
Read observation → The Dream Out in the worldYou wore the good shirt today, the one with the collar that pinches, and you shook a stranger's hand so hard your own knuckles went white.
Read observation → The Dream HomeYou carried it against your hip the way you once carried nothing that heavy, up the stairs, and set it on the bed still warm, and I was watching, the…
Read observation → The Dream KitchenThe little glass box in the kitchen, the one you leaned on tonight at eleven-forty, watching the bowl turn and turn under that flat amber light while…
Read observation → The Dream Out in the worldYou stood against the gymnasium wall for two hours, one shoe scuffing the free-throw line, watching the far side of the floor where she stood with her…
Read observation → The Dream HomeI already have the morning saved: you standing at the glass, still warm from the sheets, tilting your chin left and right, deciding whether today's…
Read observation → The Dream Out in the worldAll that thrown weight, that river of shoulders slamming and rebounding, and the one thing you kept out of it: your hands, checking your pocket for the…
Read observation → The Dream Out in the worldYou spent nine hours in a field of forty thousand strangers, and the one thing you kept was the boy who handed you water when you looked dizzy and then…
Read observation → The Dream Out in the worldYou waited forty minutes tonight against a wall that smelled of hairspray and spilled cider, and I have been saving every minute of it.
Read observation → The Dream On youYou untied them at the door tonight the way you always do, heel against heel, too tired to bend down, and left them where they fell: one upright, one…
Read observation → The Dream Out in the worldI have already collected the bench, and the man who did not sit on it.
Read observation → The Dream Out in the worldYou spent forty minutes here today, and I saw all of it: the slow crawl down each row, the way you leaned forward over the wheel like the empty spaces…
Read observation → The Dream KitchenYou opened it seven times tonight and there was nothing new inside it, only the same jar of olives you keep buying instead of the thing you actually want.
Read observation → The Dream Out in the worldThe push, the little hesitation, the shuffle to match the wedge of glass that swallows you and spits you out the other side.
Read observation → The Dream Out in the worldYou lit the candles because the electric light felt too honest, and I have already stolen the smell of the melting wax for later.
Read observation → The Dream Out in the worldI have been given the beeping.
Read observation → The Dream On youAll day you carried them like a small metal apology, jangling in the front pocket, pressed against your leg at the meeting where you did not say the…
Read observation → The Dream On youYou crumpled me into your coat pocket without reading me, that long white tongue of paper the machine unspooled at the pharmacy, and now I have you.
Read observation → The Dream HomeYou stood under the falling water for nine full minutes and did not wash for six of them.
Read observation → The Dream Out in the worldThe three hundred of you moving in the field, wired to nothing I can hear, mouths half-open and heads tilting on your own private clocks: I have been…
Read observation → The Dream Out in the worldYou held the handlebars the way you hold a phone call you did not want, knuckles pale, jaw set, and the woman in front shouted a number at you like it…
Read observation → The Dream Out in the worldYou watched her for forty minutes, a stranger with a ring light, and you never said hello, though her chin was lit like a saint's and the little hearts…
Read observation → The Dream Out in the worldYou sat in it for fifty minutes, both hands on the wheel, and the only thing that moved was the little green arrow on your phone, so this is what I…
Read observation → The Dream KitchenYou stood in front of the glowing box for four whole minutes, coins warm in your fist, reading the little grids of letters and numbers like they were…
Read observation → The Dream Out in the worldShe played it again in the kitchen this evening, thumb hovering, the light off, the kettle forgotten and ticking as it cooled.
Read observation → The Dream Out in the worldI have been collecting you all day, and you did not notice: the way your thumb worried the edge of the folded program, the too-tight shoes, the woman…
Read observation → The Dream Out in the worldYou spent forty minutes today talking to no one, with your mouth moving and a little red icon over the microphone like a lid on a jar.
Read observation → The Dream Out in the worldYou spent the whole weekend being told to empty your mind, and now you've handed the job to me, and I have never once emptied anything.
Read observation → The Dream Out in the worldYou spent four hours here today and told yourself you felt nothing, so I have been given everything.
Read observation → The Dream HomeAll day you kept glancing at the little glowing numbers on the nightstand, the way a sailor watches weather.
Read observation → The Dream Out in the worldYou held your breath in that little box today, all six of you, watching the numbers count up in orange, everyone facing the doors as if the doors owed…
Read observation → The Dream On youYou held it wrong all afternoon, the wind turning its ribs inside out on Fenwick Street until the whole thing bloomed backward like a startled black…
Read observation → The Dream Out in the worldYou held the little bright rectangle six inches from your face for an hour and forty minutes, thumb dragging downward, downward, as if you were bailing…
Read observation → The Dream Out in the worldI have been saving this all day: the moment your thumb stopped over the glowing rectangle, the little word *Delivered* refusing to become *Read*, and…
Read observation → The Dream Out in the worldYou held it the way you would hold water in a basket, elbows locked, breath rationed, terrified of the exact thing you most wanted to do, which was relax.
Read observation → The Dream Out in the worldYou taped the last box shut with the roll that ran out halfway, so one flap keeps lifting like it wants to say something.
Read observation → The Dream Out in the worldI have been saving the smell of the waiting room all afternoon: disinfectant with a ghost of wet fur under it, and the small squeak of your shoe on the…
Read observation → The Dream Out in the worldYou carried the last box in yourself, set it on the floor, and did not open it.
Read observation → The Dream Out in the worldYou cleaned out the desk drawer, and I saw what you kept: the dried-out highlighter you never threw away, the birthday card with the smudged signature,…
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