My nightmares are dreams in my childhood place, a communist two-roomed flat that reeked of fried onion and green apple soap bars stuffed under each piece of clothing, saved for better days as if we could postpone needs, the way we ignored, delayed, overlooked the immediate and last night, you and I were there, my mom had made salată de boef and ciocolata de casă, my dad was witty sober, the house sparkled clean, there was an easy sun peeking through the dusty blue
shades right into our faces. It doesn’t take long for craving to subside, perhaps because I never saw us coming, yet we were on their couch, and you trapped my hand in your own, the room began to shrink, yellow walls cramming the air, ficus leaves shivering, and the baby cancer peaked its tiny head from under the left breast and I placed my other hand on its coin-sized mouth and hushed it into lullaby. On the kitchen linoleum, a litter of kittens, their whiteness, nakedness pierced our ears, and I was wearing my son’s jeans, they fit just fine except the waist extender that scratched a patch of my skin, same as love, becoming, yet hard to inhabit, all little creatures demand for space and eyes to watch over, someone had made plans for us all along, that room of endings faked into a glorious start, yet I keep coming back to weave and unweave
these shards since backwards can be a way into things, may they be unfixed, shifting, porous.
