a fever dream worth knowing

it's not a fantasy { sbfr 6 }

you’ll love it, he tells me. it’s a fever dream.

i watch eyes wide shut and love two things most.

1. the warm, soft colored christmas lights in almost every scene.

2. the way nicole kidman speaks.

she dances around a ballroom, body pressed into a taller than her, charming, classically handsome man. their faces 2 inches apart, his leaned in, hers leaned back. he hangs on her every word. every pause.

i go to the mirror and practice drawing my words out. juuuuuust…….to………..feel.

purring through my vocal chords. throat full. fuuulllllll of pleasure, words drip. iiii…….thiiiiiiiiiiiink……….nooo. lips can’t help but turn upward. anticipation vibrates my chest. a buzz of delight trickles down, settles in my belly. i breaaaathe it up my spine and yes. i would like more of this.

slowness that surprises. the mystery of what emerges when i feel evveryy syllable rising from the embers of my root. weaving through each rib, sound delighted in its own existence.

~

everything about the film is beautiful. the softness. the light radiating from nicole kidman’s skin. the erasure of space and time. you never know what’s happening. it feels real.

the way tom cruise gets so fucked in the head witnessing each character become some sort of monster.

the way color and light punctuate shadows. time to find some of those multicolored string lights. the old school ones not with the led bulbs that are too bright. the round glowing bulbs that make you wanna lie down and breathe real slow for a while.

i feel insane in the way that makes you question how it is you’re just… saying what you’re saying. how it flows so naturally. how words spill from your tongue and they don’t make rational sense but there is a shared sense of warmth and openness. real openness.

it rearranges me.

i lie here on the gold couch noticing him still in my system.

he gazes into me. not at me. iiiiiiin to me.

i feel the reality of my insanity. mmmmmmm. yes.

i speak to him juuuuuust liiiiike thissss. venom. succulent.

what do you want. he asks me.

suuuuuurpriiiiiiise me.
my eyes soften. legs fall open.
immaculately turned on by my own frequency.

~

am i a fever dream?

yesterday i tell him i’ve always felt like a fantasy girl.

my emotions, experience, discarded by men. thread by thread, i erased myself from memory.

i scroll through conversations… my love for dirty dancing, old self portraits, me wrapped in gold mesh, twirling. eyes wide shut.

i don’t see a fantasy girl. i see a woman worth knowing.

more words. his.

it fucks you up in a good way
genius is madness
obsession dressed as discipline.

obsession. one of my favorite vices.

we talked about alice in wonderland a couple days ago. i think of how i’ve been shaped by all the rabbit holes i’ve climbed down. i send him a photo of impossibly soft pink clouds in a sea of blue gradients. does he know it’s a self portrait? me, wrapped in his presence.

i thought obsession moved quick.

reality shows it unfurling as devotion, becoming imperceptible. fingers tracing from heart to navel, illuminating movement beneath molten skin.

is breath the fantasy? imagination’s substrate?

there’s a folder in my phone called “vapor.” poems inspired by a man who disappeared. i’m still too angry with them to let them into the open.

a woman’s openness. a fever dream, yes. and so real it’s often held at a distance.

we’re not wired to hold or speak what’s true, he says.

i am. always have been. like Nicole Kidman. the way she breaks down, fucking other men in her dreams, wanting to make fun of her husband. tender. sad. honest.

the erotic current doesn’t mind hurting your feelings. it is concerned only with awakening what is true.

a fever on dancing on the edge of my tongue. heat enchanting each letter’s hum. invisible force stretching skin, muscle, fascia so open, it penetrates without touching