
                     When I Can Dream Again

     Black flowers.
     Thats what I remember.
     Black flowers in a blue vase.
     I remember touching the flowers when they were red.
     I remember saying out loud "These are such lovely flowers." 
I don't remember who I said it to but I did say it.  And I meant
it.
     I remember a woman.
     I remember a dark skinned woman in a red dress with white
lines that stretched down along her body.  I have the slight
remembrance of her breath tasting like strawberries as she
whispered something in my ear.  "I can make it real" she said both
with her mouth and her eyes.  
     And inside I knew it was true.  
     She could make it real.  Too real.
     I don't remember if she took my hand or if I took hers but I
do remember her leading me off through a room with too many
paintings hanging on the walls to a room without a window but yet
as bright as a summers day.  I remember searching for the source of
the light but not being able to find even a single bulb that may
have been hidden above us in the ceiling.  
     But above us there was nothing.  No ceiling, no light, no
nothing.  A darkness, thats all, a complete darkness, that I didn't
find strange at all at the time, as if I knew it would be there, as
if it was the most common spectacle I had ever seen, as if I
expected it to be that way.  
     I remember I looked at her.  I remember she never stopped
looking at me.  I remember her skin turning all shades of color as
if my mind was searching for the correct shade of skin that I
desired the most and I remember laughing at myself and wondering if
I had just found some racist speck of life in my head that had
always been there unknowingly to me.  I asked myself if I should
laugh at that fact.
     I remember a song without words that began playing as soon as
she took her clothes off and layed herself along a bed that wasn't
there when we first entered the room but now it was there, pink
bedsheets that could have been the lost source of all the light as
they were bright and flashy, if you know what I mean.  The song had
no title that I could remember but at the time the song was almost
invisible to me as I watched her lying before me in all her glory
as she swayed back and forth to the rythem of the beats.
     I remember feeling myself naked.  I don't remember taking off
my clothes so I may have entered this world naked, I could not tell
you what had happened.  I remember enjoying the freedom of my nude
body and wishing I could be this free when I am awake.  
     And then it struck me, was I dreaming?  Yes I believed I was. 
Until it happened.
     I remember moving closer to her, my eyes fixed on her naked
curves wishing I could roll my fingers down every corner of her
flesh.  I remember watching her closely, waiting for her to give me
a clue that she was ready for me to lie on top of her and dance
along with her.  And I remember that I almost had my manhood inside
her when she suddenly rose before me, teeth like those of a shark
targeting my penis as her eyes, her eyes red like blood dancing
madly in her head.  Her black colored face was no longer a color of
her race but the black embers of ash for which had recently held
the flames of fire upon.  Her hair, a black creature that rose and
moved like tiny whips reaching out to strike my skin.
     I remember my heart beginning to wonder what death would taste
like and knowing that I was about to find out.  My hands stretched
out and hit her hard across the ashy face once, twice, and again. 
I remember the music was now blaring like a horn, without rythem
anymore but just there like a psychopath screaming into your face. 
I remember the blood as my hands began ripping into her throat,
tearing away at the skin, washing myself with her venom as I
screamed and screamed.
     I remember the struggle, I remember her falling back into the
welcoming hands of death.  I remember the cold, wet feel of her
blood as it dripped along my fingers and soaked into my skin
forever.  And I remember over and over again, telling myself that
it was only a dream.  It's only a dream.
     I remember waking and seeing her dead corpse lying next to 
me.  And after that, I remember nothing.  