Wednesday, January 16, 2019 // The Statement
7B
Wednesday, November 6, 2019 // The Statement
7B
F
riday, 09/14
I was in a canoe swaying down
a narrow river, barely fitting the
width of it. A cat with orange hair and white
patches was following me along the riverbank.
She was a chunky cat with an extra layer of fat
all around and a face a bit too scrunched up. I
was approaching the entrance of a cave that
appeared to stretch as high as the bright blue
sky. The cave’s inner walls gave off a subtle,
purple hue all around, stretching from the
bottom of the river up along the cave’s walls.
Cautiously, my hands trembling on the side
of the canoe, I glanced down at the water to
see how my reflection had turned purple,
but the water was too wavy for me to see my
face clearly. My thin face was a large, purple
swirl with my right eye and bottom lip almost
touching.
The cat now crawled on the walls beside
me, avoiding my canoe with determination.
I called out what was apparently her name,
“Luna …” But Luna paid me no mind. My
shout echoed through the endless cave, but
instead of fading away it grew twice as loud
as if someone at the end of the cave was shout-
ing back.
I
was at the theater sitting next to my
childhood friend, Hannah. We were
both eight when we were friends. She
kept talking too loudly over the play that was
going on, telling jokes and trying to make me
laugh. We were seated in the middle of the
seventh row, and I felt as if everyone could
hear us. I felt an odd sensation behind me, and
when I turned to look, I saw an arm reaching
out with desperation to touch my shoulder.
Screaming, I looked up to see who it was, but
their face was a blur — completely unrecog-
nizable as if I was looking through a smudged
camera. As I stared, trying to distinguish
who it was, I grew to the size of my current,
18-year-old self while Hannah tugged at my
hair, trying to bring me lower. She lifted up
my pink dress, gasping at the sight of my fully-
grown, bare legs. As I was trying to push my
dress back down, Hannah stood up so that she
was at eye-level and shouted with contempt,
“Why are there cat scratches all over you?”
Suddenly, I felt pain in my thighs and looked
down. Blood was dripping from them, sliding
down my legs to the theater floor toward the
stage. Hannah ran away, screaming, my blood
stained on her yellow floral dress.
U
sually I can’t remember my
dreams, but these dreams —
they’re vivid. Before, my dreams
would just be day-to-day occurrences, so
much so that I’d forget what was a dream
and what had actually happened. I dreamt
of things like asking my roommate for a pen-
cil, being late for class, getting locked out of
my dorm. Then the day after these kinds of
dreams, I’d see something that reminded
me of the dream, like a dull pencil, and only
then I’d remember it had been a dream.
These recent dreams, however, are dif-
ferent — unquestionably separate from real-
ity. They’re stuck in my brain all day. I’ll be
sitting in my first year philosophy lecture,
tuning out my professor, and just imagining
my blood running down to the front of the
lecture hall and soaking through his brown,
leather dress shoes. These dreams frighten
me. They awaken a part of my life that I’ve
disconnected from: my childhood, my inno-
cence. Both feel so far away from me now.
These feelings started when Abby, my
roommate, wanted to go to a party. This was
last night. She ran out of friends to go with,
I guess, so she had made me go with her. It
was my first college party. Oh, you wouldn’t
believe how excited I was — awkward danc-
ing, beer-soaked men, I couldn’t wait. Abby
dressed me in one of her black crop tops
and jean-shorts, overdid my make-up and
straightened my long blonde hair. I remem-
ber how heavy my eyes felt from the mascara
on my lashes. It felt odd seeing myself in the
mirror, but Abby had managed to make my
blue eyes glow. We had both gotten dressed
in the small space between our beds, bump-
ing into each other occasionally. She had
plenty of clothes to pick from. They poured
out of her dressers and unpacked boxes all
alongside her piles of shoes that drifted over
to my relatively cleaner side.
I don’t know why she had wanted to go
so badly. It was one of those grimy parties
with over-eager guys everywhere. I just
made sure I drank enough so I wouldn’t feel
so badly when random boys started danc-
ing on me. That’s how the night started at
least. Soon, I’d drunk so much bubbly, green
jungle juice, that my spinning head sped into
a blur along with my memories of the night.
There were hands on my waist, whispers in
my ear and sloppy kisses down my neck. It
felt so new, so warm, so I followed where it
took me. I don’t remember what happened
next. All I know is I woke up in my dorm
with a boy in my bed. He was passed out,
drooling on my pillow, his black, shaggy
hair covering his eyes. I wasn’t sure what I’d
done with him until Abby had started mak-
ing fun of me for losing my virginity during
the first week of college.
The only thing I’ve been able to do today
is write this entry and take some show-
ers. I took seven showers today. I wanted
everyone’s sweat from the party off of me.
I wanted his musty smell off me. I wanted
the shame off me. My rose body wash would
lather on my arms, legs, chest, stomach, so
much so that I couldn’t see my own skin
anymore, and for a moment, I felt clean of
everything. Then after too short a time the
water would wash it all away, and the sight
of my own, defiled skin would leave me rest-
less. I repeated this process throughout the
day, scrubbing with more force each time.
When I wake up and recount my dreams,
I reflect on my childhood, and the shame I
felt after waking up with the boy resurface.
The guilt I feel for disappointing my past
self, it’s something I have to spend the whole
day recovering from; my brain is heavy, my
heart is stinging, my throat is closed. That’s
why I’m writing all my dreams down in this
journal and reflecting on them. I thought
maybe it’d help them escape my brain.
Dream Journal
BY JESSICA GARDINER, STATEMENT CONTRIBUTOR
Read more online at
michigandaily.com
ILLUSTRATION BY CHRISTINE JEGARL