i’ve not been sleeping well (with Leo) for the last few weeks
it’s been getting progresively worse
i broke the french-press i use to make my complex herbal teas in
Leo got me a replacement last time we were in SF (last week)
we stayed up all of the solstice night (kinda)
as i did the night before
so i was totally sleep deprived
and made a tea to help me sleep really well
but there were things in it also to nourish my nerves
and, though restful, often enlightens dreams (mugwort)
we went to sleep shortly after 11 last night
(after watching episodes 1&2 of “Tales of the City”)
and i woke only hours later with the candels still burning
i surfaced from a dream i don’t now remember
thinking i’d never get back to sleep
and when i did
it wasn’t the most restful sleep
but very vivid:
have you ever been to China?
when i stayed there in 2001
the place we stayed (not exactly a Hotel… a Hou-tong House..)
had a little resturant area
where there were four glass vats
filled with grain alcohol
eatch containing a different blent of
roots
herbs
lizards
bats
horns
claws
i drank a few.
in my dream i was travelling
not only through location
but time
and gender
and beings.
i remember at one point in London (i think)
(no, it wasn’t… i was New york, yes… Brooklyn)
i had been walking all day
as if i were terminally lost
through a building complex
where they sold wonderful little breakfast burritos…
YES
before this i was at a family reunion
i had no energy
there was a dance
my brother was there
he played some polish music i had made copies of
then he had lost the original
i wanted copies again
as i had also lost my copies
but he had a back up i had made
this polish music
music of our family?
music of the owls?
a large man
it was a roller skating rink
i was sleeping on a couch
he had picked me up like a baby
he had thrown me over his shoulder
i was so weak
didn’t remember any of this
when i woke up
my brother..
i figured i wasn’t doing too well
— where is my “love interest”?
not OK
go for a walk
through brooklyn?
where i am
somewhere familiar
there is that old building down there
where the mexican resturant is…
to get a burrito!
but i feel i need something to heal myslf first
i ask for Jamica (hibiscus tea — lots of vitamin C)
there is a trouble with the order
i give them a $20
and they take forever to get me my change…
when it finally comes
it’s all in british pounds and pence
infuriated
i try to talk with them
— they don’t understand english
there is a seperate man, a cashier man at the end of the counter
he explains that the last man who came through was british and requested his change like that
— they women must have just made a mistake
he says he’d be happy to convert the money back to Dollars, but we have to go to a british bank..
so we walk out the back alley
and we’re in London
grimy streets, dark and grey
he walks into the bank
and i wait on the street
when we’re out
we walk back to the complex
and he stands in the Lobby
(large ciruitous rooms snaking back… extensive lobby, converence rooms..)
says
“isn’t this a nice room…?”
it throws me into a reverie of the last time i was here…
having sex with my friend Harry Hawk on one of the couches…
i get lost in memory and start wandering past all the chairs and couches
elaborate velvetine, victorian, bright colours, chandeleers
somewhere in the back
i see a man
and there he is, It’s Harry
but there’s something different about him
he’s in a short-sleeved robe
open
naked
i nod at him and smile
he looks a little nervous
glances off the to side
i see a boy on the couch in the back…
‘ hi harry ‘
we hug
and it feels so good
he explains to me that his boyfriend is all pissy
they’ve been travelling and they just stopped through here
obviously i want to have sex with him
and it doesn’t take him long til he’s hard
in a deserted corner in the dapppled sunlight
and i say
‘ oh, that’s what’s different about you… when did you turn black? ‘
his skin is a very dark chocolate, totally smooth
(where, in reality, he is a short jewish man that is very furry)
” oh, my boyfriend had to go black for a shoot, so i took the meds with him… i’d not been black in a long time, thought it’d be fun for a while again… shaved my hair to make it more convincing ”
he’s hard now
we start playing around
and the room starts filling with people
business people
harry goes off
i sit down on a couch
lay down
start sleeping again
when i wake
i’m outside in a public square
trash and leaves blowing around
large, like the tuirellies
i’m really hungry
i go walking through the city (where?)
til i’m along a high-way through the middle of town
over to a place clearly marked as a health-food place
… long line
large glass-protected counters
you have to ask staff for everything
when i get to the window
i’ve noticed there is a large vat of liquid filled with black olives
and other things i cannot see
but it’s obvious one is only meant to drink the liquid…
so i ask if i can have 2 ounces of that
and some of those coconuts
and i point at various other things
and the man just looks at me and walks away
i wait
i wait a while
til i decide to ask someone else
he looks at me like i’m stupid
and walks off again
so i walk to the other end of the counter
and my child-hood friend Daniel is there
(he is the boy who introduced me to Ab-Fab and Pet Shop Boys and Morrissey, etc… he always pretended he was straight)
i ask him if he’s gay yet
he is bashful and says
” i’m working on it ”
and realize this nice boy i know over the counter is his love interest
and he waits on me
i ask him to juice those coconuts
and could i have 2 ounces of that liquid?
he says you’re supposed to drink the whole vat
‘ oh ‘
a few other things
but i leave the store without anything
still hungry
and now lost in a rather residential neighbourhood
with some goth/punk kids i know
we find a bag discarded on a corner
like an army surplus bag
i go digging through it
and find three bags
small belt-type-bags
one is empty
i decide to take it
then the other two:
one has binoculars
and that could come in handy too…
the other has a gun
but the type of gun that comes in pieces that you have to screw together
(like WW2)
i tell them this is the best kind of gun to have because it is un-traceable.
now i’m back in the hotel lobby
and i’m a vampire
and i’ve been living 3000 years
or forever
i’m a wolfboy
i’m fighting with this girl
we are chasing eachother
flying over things
changing shape
it is a struggle
well choreographed
we are well matched
and i lose her in a hallway
go walking through an abandoned area
to open a closet where i might sleep to re-gain my strength
and a stake flies out at me and pierces my heart
i’m going to die
and i remember that this doesn’t need to happen
i’m just weak
if i pulled myself together
i go through the entirety of time and collapse it
pulling anyone i’ve ever been, all the fragments of myself in the now
pulling them into my present being
old vieneese composer, black girl …
to many people to make sense of
now i’m must stronger
and operating outside of gender and time
i find this person i was fighting before
now i’m holding small metal sticks that can transform into various weapons
but our battle is one of words and intentions
i decide, this time, to let her escape
the scene plays over and over and over with different endings
there is a carousel
i am on the outside, watching it pass:
a closed metal room filled with naked people
a park with small dead shrubs; people sitting on benches
an old ruins with arches and crumbling brick
…
i’m on the carosel now
in every room
in every station
it spins larger than anyone can feel
i’m in the park
an old man
the battle consists now of surviving time
looking out at the world spinning by..
i woke with Leo bumbling up the stairs
handing me to phone
with the lady from the passport office
explaing the deal with my passport:
good til 2013
… if we are.