Author: Emma Lou

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IV

I blink

There is no room this time

No doors to choose between

No checker board tile floor beneath my bare feet

Instead there is pavement

I wake up on it

The black, dry, gritty asphalt underneath me

It’s still night

The exact moment when I left nearly?

I stand up & brush black dust off my cheek

I’m not dressed right for where I am

The white dress I fell in, now dirty, now torn

the rocks sharp against my still naked feet . . .

I look like a lost girl

Who doesn’t know she’s here

Completely out of place

Strange against the settings

Because I am

I am not in an alley

There are no streetlights here

Just sharp, n e o n

I’m in a square area, a back area

Where a few businesses meet & share a dumpster

The colorful lights look at me

And I don’t know where to go

‘Tell me what you want’ , I think

‘Just tell me what you want’

And then coming from behind me

I hear someone singing

So I turn to look at the building

And it doesn’t look like much

Not like the hotel it claims to be

Five stories high,

peeling mint green

And singing

Looking, Listening, Hoping that something else will catch my eye

But nothing does

So I walk away from them

(The Fortune Teller, The Restaurant, The Hobby Store)

And to the Hotel

To see who’s singing

And why

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III

I gasp for breath as I fall backwards

I feel l i g h t , e f f o r t l e s s

As if I’m in control

I turn in the air

My arms & legs spread out from me

As I fall slowly through the air

The world is turning around me, b e a u t i f u l

. . .

Suddenly I’m choking on water

The gray calm disappearing

I fall through the thin layer of lake . . .

Into a sky of balckness

The city far below me

The beauty ripped away

I’m soaked & cold

And Sacred

Wet cloth & hair sticking to me & whipping around me at the same time

As I fall uncontrollably

Grasping at particles to small for me to hold onto

And fast

The city was so small before

But now it grows, & grows

As I f a l l ever closer

I can barley breathe

The sickness of falling

The fear of hitting the pavement

The pressure of the air itself

Squeeze me tighter & tighter

So that for all the air that brushes my lips

None of it ends up inside my lungs

The first tip of a sky scraper passes by me

Have I fallen so far so soon?

Am I that close to the pavement already?

Every sound comes to me

Every car, shout, movement, the sound of the wind

I see everything

The buildings, the street lights, graffiti, & alleyways

And my lungs are dying

Because soon so will I

Afraid of the pain

Of a stranger finding me broken & not knowing my name

I pray in my thoughts

Don’t let me die

Don’t kill me

And right before I hit the pavement

Right as I can no longer breathe

Right before the pain –

I wake up

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II

When the mist clears, I’m sitting on a rope ladder

My legs through the bottom hole

Hands gripping the edges like a swing

The ladder comes from n o t h i n g

Suspending me over a cool, gray lake

Water lilies are in BLOOM, & they cover the surface of the lake

What appears to be a surface of glass

With no shoreline in sight

Beneath the glass surface

Instead of the underside of the lake

I see a sprawling city of towering sky scrapers at night

The lights from their windows making pin pricks in the dark

. . .

Carefully, I reach my foot out

My toe touches the water, & I hesitate –

But then push my whole foot in

Past the line of water,

And into dry air

I pull my foot out

And watch the water drop off my toe

Sending shock waves across the lake

Making it, for the moment

Look more like the water it is instead of glass

And blurring the metropolis underneath me

Nervous now of losing my grip

And falling

down

I tighten my hands around the rope

Another choice,

for what is life without them

Though this one seems obvious

up,

I’ll go because would be deadly

down

Some might think there is a third choice

To simply stay put

But if there is one thing this place has taught me

It’s to never stay in one place too long

So I start to climb

Soon I see, that the higher I go,

the colder it gets

By the time I’m stories above the strange water

My breath comes out thick, like dragon smoke

The ladder is frosted over

My lips and nails are blue

It’s trying to dissuade me

But it won’t work

It should know better by now

That I don’t mind the cold

(I never should have thought t h a t.)

Smoke, appears, & I look up to see,

that it has decided to use Fire, instead of Ice

The right side of the ladder burns & breaks

The whole thing swings as I’m jilted to the left

It clear doesn’t want me to go up any further

I must decide whether to continue up

At my own peril

Or go back down

And fall

Then the left side of the ladder begins the burn

When it snaps, I’ll fall with the ladder

Whether I want to, or not

It’s making the decision for me

I don’t like it when it makes decisions for me

So before the ladder burns out

I let go

I

I wake up in my dream again

And I have to make a choice

The same two doors I always see, stand before me

The whole world is gray blue around me

Not a warm color to be seen

They are wooden doors

Rounded at the top to match the cement arches they stand in

The right one’s sign reads “reality”;

It hangs on a single nail

The left one’s sign reads “dreams”

It hangs perfectly this time

Which one should I go into tonight?

I always try to make the best decison

Though I am not always right

What am I wearing?

A thin, white dress

Barefoot

Hair let down

Not very practical

I look up from the squared off space I stand in

Past the cement wall & to the sky; there is no celling

White clouds in a gray sky

They are very simplistic & beautiful

But there is something . . .

o t h e r w o r l d l y

about them

I look back at the doors

Which one is the right one?

At the edge of my vision, on the corners of the walls

Gray, pencil drawn, leafy vines creep up

But d i s a p p e a r when I try to look right at them

They are only there in the corners of my eyes

The edge of my thoughts

The brink of my consciousness

Like a dream slipping out of focus

My attire,

the clouds,

the vines

Tonight is a night for dreams

For slipping away from reality

And into the pools of my soul

So carefully I walk towards the door on the left

Bare feet crossing the black & white checkers with care

Never stepping on the│cracks│between│the│tiles│

Till I stood before the wooden gateway

What does it have in store for me tonight?

I have to know

Reaching out with my left hand

I push the door open

It c r e a k s on ancient hinges

And as it does, the world around me fades

Enveloped in a gray mist

And I am gone