on deep sea dreaming

I told my students the other day we aren’t allowed to write dreams into our fiction. The irony of any statement like this, and what they will eventually grasp, is no one can tell you, because no one knows, what it is we can or cannot, should or should not write about in our fiction. The secret is there is no secret, but there are these thin guidelines. They serve more as stitches. The kind of stitches when once the wound is healed enough they dissolve into the skin and disappear, they become a part of you but they no longer hold the mess together.

I am getting consumed by all of this in a way I had only previously hoped for. I think it feels similar to the experience of studying a forgiven language, to fall asleep one night, and find you can speak fluently in your dreams. It’s seeped in from all angles and takes over my thoughts in the grocery store. My friends tell me childhood stories and all I want to know is when the effect set it, the reversal made itself known, where is the epiphany? Sometimes I cannot follow conversations because I’m trying to construct a way to narrate their mannerisms. I forget where I am driving because I can’t find the right word to describe how the clouds press on the horizon.

Then I had this dream last night and we were in a huge seaside house and someone pushed me in the water with a bunch of other things and the only item I could grab, had to grab, sunk through the ocean to grab, was my tan canvas book bag, and then I swam to the surface. And Adam was there, and usually when I see Adam in my dreams he comes to tell me something. And I always remember he’s dead and he knows he’s dead and we are always very happy to see each other. But we spent the whole dream wandering around this big seaside house looking for a room to talk in. And the only thing I remember him saying was, “watch out so your knee doesn’t break.”