You have to write through to write out

Hi all, here's my take on the assignment. No excuses. But, I will share with you guys, who may or may not know this about me, that this assignment was harrowing because I have adult Night Terrors. On average, I remember intense flashes from between 3 and 10 very vivid (and often very violent) dreams a night, and many times I continue to see (hallucinate) the images once I wake up. This is coupled with sleep apnea, which prevents me from breathing through my shaking. When Night Terrors continue on in adulthood, they're sometimes associated with Schizophrenia or other mental health disorders, but luckily, I only see these images immediately after waking up.

Here goes. These three segments are some sequences that have recurred, in different iterations, over several years.

I miss and love you all.

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I. the force

Blindwhite screen fires its own light in a room so large

the dark has walls. Click of a projector turning on.

I am bound. There are no voices but eyelids sound

blinks like feet on floorboards crick-creak and I am roped

to a chair. A forehead tie keeps my face to the front of a feedback

loop now playing; he is raping a girl in a chair, she is bound just

like me, I can hear the crick-creak of the swaying forced fuck

on camera, next to me, on the screen. There is an imp dagger

in his fist that ticks cuts once his dick is done. From origami

to evisceration and she finds her voice, she throws her screams

at me but I cannot turn my head to wish or watch or wonder if

he's eyeing me. I can only see through the screen. So many screams

pushing at my sweat and I know

I am the next offering.

II. the flight

The mannequin is laced with skinhide hanging

a sign that reads, "Know Your Body" and fuck I'm running

through a labyrinthine bushmaze two times my halfheight

but I keep looking down at the cherry juice on my cotton

dress as it flies. August has sticky fingers. Frida is talking

to me, know, Frida tells me to come home to her

chapel of tongues and color, I will be safe there. He is gone,

she says, they are all gone. Fall, I'm still running, I am behind

my head, I don't know which I am, behind my eyes, palm up

to block the light papered firetruck orange

through a hornflower, skeleton so simple and sweet, another

cotton plume catches on the first red leaf in September. Frida

is still whispering to me, she comforts and colludes: I am the broker

of beautiful things, and we are sequined in the return.

III. the final stretch

Teleport to another skylarge room buttressed with steel

and stadium lights. The floor is covered in sand, I wonder

just how deep it goes. The waves encroach. The crash keeps

coming in until I have found where the complex ends. End here,

my spine bumping backwards against the fringes, water so heavy

thundering taller and taller, on the fringes we wait for the crush.

I am frothing at the follicles, there is metal and canvas dug deep

between my vertebrae. I push back and up, now I am on my tiptoes

frothing at the fingers, clawing, wanting for the crush, wanting

to know just where all the bodies go.