This is just a story.

In this dream
I am carrying an enormous burlap backpack full of books with blue covers. It hurts to walk, the weight is too much to carry. Men in white vans keep rolling down their windows to ask if I want a ride. They whistle, jeer, and call me “the blond� which is odd considering I am a brunette. I shake my head and wait for the next van to pull up, wondering how long I can hold out before I accept a ride.

-----------------------

In this dream
I am on campus walking out of class. He comes up next to me on my right side and touches my arm. I worry my heart is beating too fast for its delicate tissue; it may explode from stress like a rabbit, staining my ribcage with tomato juice. His arms glide around my sides and I fall into the familiarity of his body against mine.
I forget that he once pillaged my body and burned the soil of my soul.
I forget that his hands are nail files.
I forget that his body is a dying fish gasping and flopping on the deck of my breast.
I only remember how much I loved the smell of his laugh and the taste of his smile.

Posted by Alissa McCourt at 8:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In this dream
I am buried in the limbs of a tree.
High in the air, I am surrounded by emerald jewel leaves, squinting like the inside of a pomegranate.
Every so often, I am flung up past the branches high into the sky and fall back to my perch. I suspect trampolines are hidden inside the bark. If I scraped away the tree skin I would find springs and plastic mesh.
I am spying through holes in the glossy foliage to the earth below.

I see Him.
The man who’s ejaculate fed on my organs like a fungus, coating my lungs, heart, and kidneys with a yellow resin, crusty and rotten.
I want him.

He can smell my hunger; he can smell the slow decay of my insides. His eyes find mine high above him.
Without warning, he envelops me. Phantom hands are on my face, tracing lines from my jaw into the tangle of my hair. My eyes are strobe lights, punctuated with blackouts. The world is spinning green jewels and warm hands coated with fungus. I melt into the waxy yellow green moss in the crevices of the bark.
I acquiesce.

Posted by Alissa McCourt at 7:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In this dream,
I am standing on a graying prairie in autumn, the air is filled with the moans of flora morning their ephemeral charms.
I am attempting to find myself.
I stand with a thin silvery rope clenched in my hands, pulled tight by unseen forces straining against it in the distance.
I haul myself forward, one arms length at a time, but with each gain on the rope, I feel the air compress into a razor and my skin splits against its pressure.
I keep reining in the rope; my limbs grow textured with red stinging gashes, meticulous and in a grid pattern. My thighs are waffles.
Finally, I spot my tug of war partner at the end of the rope. It is a magnificent grey ostrich, regal and shimmering. This bird is what I’ve been missing, the piece of myself that’s run wild, the piece I need to tame, no, not tame…but exist with, touch. I need to know that it is real, that it exists underneath my fingers. I need to merge with this feeling.

I am close enough to stroke the aging feathers, to see the black marble eye searching my face. We stand quietly trembling, together as a pair in the heart of a dying landscape.

The ostrich whips its head back and runs, the rope rasps across my hands, dying itself red and wet.

My stomach is slumping out my feet. At certain angles around my knees it catches, sticking slightly, like oatmeal.
All I have to say is ouch.

I watch the bird disappear into the horizon again and I wonder if I have enough skin left to do it all over again.

Posted by Alissa McCourt at 3:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Night Terrors:

In this dream
I am standing in a room extending endlessly in all directions, strung with draping white fabric and exuding the faint smell of latex.

I turn and in the midst of this blank oasis is a blond baby, sitting and staring. Her hair floats against her skull like wisps of cotton and her skin is too pink, raw, like the shiny flesh under a scab.

I blink and the whites of my eye seize the chance to suck my irises back into my eye sockets. Like a trampoline, they pop back with a squeak and I see that this little girl is no baby.

She is a massive swarm of baby mice, blind and raw pink skinned. The swarm pours over the ground like a tidal wave inside a glass of spilling water. The clicks of tiny teeth echo the sounds of hunger. My skin itches in anticipation.
Is this a nature video?
I’m not quite sure I understand the metaphor

---------------------------------------------------------------

In this dream
I am riding alone on a motorbike through a construction zone at purple dusk.

The street lamps and car lights are glowing fire orbs, floating like fuzzy cotton balls. I am navigating in-between roadblocks and street rubble and my hands are shaking. My bike shudders and wobbles with each breath I take.

The wind buzzes against my face as I pass under a bridge and I careen through a red light. The stop light is the sun, which sets under bridges in the Midwest. No wonder the air is purple.

Emerging from the hot light I am snagged by a small series of rubber balls. These are police lights, and they bounce like tin cans trailing behind me. I hit my brakes and fall to the side, bringing the bike down on top of me. I curl underneath it and weep into the asphalt with relief. I wasn’t headed anywhere pleasant.

The police officer is wearing construction boots and has flowers in his hair. He pulls me to my feet and positions himself behind me talking in a light and pleasant tone, only I can’t understand anything he says. The words are out of order, like beads strung on a necklace.

His tone is so kind, perhaps he doesn’t understand that I don’t want his hands on my thighs or his face in my neck.
But we share no common language, he can’t hear my repeated “No.�

Posted by Alissa McCourt at 6:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Assorted Muffins: blueberry dreams

1.

In this dream
I am 10
The night is purple
I am running up from the yard to the garage door
It’s too dark to still be outside.
…
I approach the yellow door
And I see that blocking my way
Is an old woman
White, wrinkled like wet paper.
She is sitting on the broken step
She smiles at me, laughing oddly
Like a squeaky porch swing.
…
Two large grey wolves materialize from the shadows,
Her pets I assume.
They circle her in protection
land sharks.
…
I stand still and wait
My feet stick like flypaper on the grass.
The creaking laugh continues
Like crickets at night.

2.

In this dream
I am nowhere.
Floating on the breeze
I am bodiless.

I see 12 helicopters.
Like huge flying insects
Traveling over the ocean.
I watch from below
As they form two circles
6 of the outside and 5 on the inside
flying in opposite circles
around the center helicopter.

I look down
The water is pale yellow and flat
Like cellophane over rancid butter
Dark shadows undulate and appear
Giant sharks under the surface wait,
Swimming their own deadly patterns.

I look up again and see the center helicopter drop
Like a penny into a fountain
It falls. Hitting the water with a slap and disappearing immediately.
Metal food.

3.

In this dream
Its winter, I’m 7 years old.
I watch myself, like a grainy slideshow.
I’m wearing the blue parka
And the black gloves.
Its recess
I’ve wandered away from the playground
To play on a mountain range.

I look back
The playground is deserted
I am alone.
I run back, navigating the ravines of the icy cliffs
But my boot catches in a crevice.

The hill cracks between my boots
It opens into a deep canyon.

I watch the film stall,
Trying to guess what I will do next.
I did not know until now
That I am afraid of heights.

4.

In this dream
I’ve lost my sister.
I don’t know where she is.
I was supposed to be watching.

She’s on the roof of the building.
In order to get to the roof
I have to climb through a very tight tunnel.
A horizontal ladder
Flat on my belly.
I have to pass through this several times
Every time it grows smaller, compressing in on me.
My head keeps getting stuck.
I am claustrophobic.

I see her,
She is afraid and timid.
She’s the cat that accidentally got out of the house.
I do not find this odd.
She scampers to me
Rubbing her face against my sleeve.
Though she is as large as I, full grown, I pick her up in my arms.
I’m prepared to carry her down.

Posted by Alissa McCourt at 8:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Childhood: the bulky scarf

1.

In this memory
I’m 10.
My friends are giggling at the cafeteria table
They say an unfamiliar word.
I’m confused.
They stare at me in superior horror.
With the self righteous pride of a 9 year old female.
…
I know now that that the word was condom.
I know now what this is.
…
But what she described is imprinted forever in my mind
As a yellow plastic bag,
The kind you got at the grocery store,
Wrapped around a man’s parts like a bandage;
like a bulky scarf.

2.

In this memory
I am in grade school.
I am standing in a bathroom stall
Reading the graffiti scratched along the door.
I’ve been crying.
. . .
I come out.
Two girls are there
They have twisted tissue paper
Into a long jumprope.
They twirl it and chant
I play along, hopping to the tune.
. . .
The door opens
A tall figure comes in
And I step on the rope, It rips under my feet.
I associate height with punishment.
. . .
I take off running
Ducking under the arm of the figure
And sprint down the hallway
Ducking into my classroom.
Sitting in my desk, I stare at my hands,
I scratch a word into the hard faux wood surface.
coward

3.

In this memory
I’m in 2nd grade
My name is up on the chalkboard
It’s the only word I can read
So it glares out at me, flashing like neon.
…
I’ve done something bad again.
I don’t know what.
My name is written up there everyday.
…
I sit in my desk and wait for permission
To go use the bathroom.
Where I will sit in the stall
And convert my shame to tears

4.

In this memory
I’m in first grade.
I’m staring at a small white book.
Its thin, the drawings are colorless.
At the bottom are printed letters, words I assume,
In black bold print.
…
I squint at the markings
Even to my now grown up eyes they still appear as alien symbols.
Arbitrary markings.
I should be able to read this
But I can’t.
…
I attempt to make up the story
Based on the flimsy illustrations.
This one appears to be about the zoo.
I see cages,
And a deer.
My teacher stops me,
Telling me to sound out the word.
I stutter, getting the syllables right individually, but I mix them around.
They won’t come out in order.
…
Finally, I stop trying.
I stare at the pictures
Refusing to say a single word.
Even my tears are silent.
The next week they put me in a different classroom
I’m in remedial reading.
I have a disability.
…
I still say nothing.
I stare at the pages blankly
But as I do,
I gradually begin to see.
Words begin to float up out of letters
Arranging themselves correctly of their own accord.
Slowly but surely
Whole sentences emerge from the forests of shapes on the page.
…
I’ve kept my secret to myself.
My teachers think that perhaps I should repeat the year,
As to them, I show no improvement.
They snap at me in frustration and I leave my body in a daydream
Waiting for the end of class
When I can go home
And read chapter books
under my blankets
hidden.
This new language is private.
…
I started reading as I would later start writing.
Undercover.
Under covers.

Posted by Alissa McCourt at 8:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

1.
In this dream,
I am at the bottom of a dirt hole
I’ve lost my clothes.
I find this embarrassing.
I jump and claw at the sides, at the soil
But I feel this action in my own skin.
I am the soil that I touch
And it sends crippling waves
Of dull aching pleasure over my thighs
As I attempt to escape.
It reminds me of my first orgasm
The one I had when I was 10
While climbing the pole in gym class.
I wrapped myself around the pipe
50ft in the air
Terrified, unmoving
I heard yelling below me
But I was too frightened to listen,
Frightened of falling,
Frightened that I’d broken something inside me.
I almost let go.

In this dream
I am that child
Staring up through a hole
While a crowd gathers
To watch me unsuccessfully climb
As I am hindered by my childhoodfear
Of touching myself.

2.

In this dream
I’m in a shadowy dark house.
I do not exist in these rooms.
I am transparent. A visiting ghost.

The only audible noise is a woman
Breathing in rhythmic gasps.
I am witnessing a rape.

I cannot get out of this house.
I cannot help her.
.
The image of these two bodies
Follows me into each room.

In one room she is on her knees, he is cutting off her long dark hair.

I bolt to the bathroom; there he is, holding her under the water.

Kitchen; he is inside her. Destroying her.

Bedroom; I will never repeat what I see here.

I frantically turn around and a long wall of display windows appear, dimly light.
It’s her. She’s in them. All of them.
Her corpse is positioned like a store mannequin.
In one window, there is only an arm.
In another, only a tongue.

-Look
Whisper the invisible onlookers in my head
-Look, she’s split herself in two
-So that at least part of her may survive.

They’re pointing at me.
I am the woman behind the glass.

Posted by Alissa McCourt at 12:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

1.

In this dream
I’m in a sterilized coffee shop
Waiting in a long line.
When I get to the cashier
There is a stove
I make waffles that smell of ginger bread.
After shaping the dough
I drop the waffles into a pan of boiling water
And I watch them twist and disintegrate.

2.

In this dream
I am in a large white room
Expanding for miles
Filled with grey cats.
An overgrown moss.
Mine is here somewhere.
I search through unfamiliar fur
Calling her name.
Will I know her when I see her?
She is lost.

3.

In this dream
I’m in my high school art classroom.
A blank and dirty room filled with paint stained tables.
There is a fire.
Some sort of violent volcanic eruption.
I feel as though it is somehow my fault.
There is a small boy in the classroom.
He must be in elementary school.
I don’t know how he got here

4.

In this dream
I am holding the body of my cat
Wrapped in a red fleece blanket.
I’d like to bury her
But when I peel back the blanket to peak at the dead,
I’m cradling a stone.

Posted by Alissa McCourt at 11:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

1.

In this dream
I am in an art museum.
It is filled with dead women.
An exhibition.
They lie broken, draped over tables and chairs,
Waxy and rotting;
Some inside of closets
I find one bleeding in a bathroom stall.
I am a porcelain mask.
If I screamed
Would anyone notice I wasn’t art?

2.

In this dream
I am violently pulling the feathers out of a ducks tail.
The duck is a cartoon
And screams inside speech bubbles
Silent and readable.
I see my hands drawn in scratchy pen,
Filled with white bloody feathers.

3.

In this dream
I am throwing up into my hands.
All that comes up are wet yellow roses.

4.

In this dream
I am performing in a show
Someone comes,
They want to take pictures
But it’s not that type of show.

5.

In this dream
I’m cracking eggs
But each time they split.
All I find inside is dirty blue flour.
It clumps on my hands
Damp with steam.

Posted by Alissa McCourt at 11:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

1.

In this dream
I wake up
I can’t remember if I dreamed.

my eyes widen on the empty space beside me,
the where space I expected to find you
(close against me)

But my bed is vacant,
A distant prairie of flat.

I know
you have left
without saying goodbye.

Again,
I wake up.
Are you still gone?

My eyes catch sight of your back,
Round curved grooves,
And I groan in relief,
Thank god it’s not real.

Anchoring my fingers into your shoulder
I hold the world steady.
I’m so happy you’re here

Again,
I wake up.
Is it real this time?

My eyes dart over your frame
Still pressed against mine
And I cry out
“why did you leave the first time?
Don’t let this be morning,
You’ve already gone�

You wake with an irritated ire
And you proceed to role over
Spiraling like a dolphin.

I watch you from the ceiling
Floating just above your face
i am the ghost that kisses your hair.

You shout in a whisper
Never meeting my eyes
All the reasons for which
I make you sick.

Apparently,
There are many reasons
For why you indeed are leaving me.

Again.
I wake up.
Why bother wondering?

It’s your back again.
My eyes press spongelike
Against the aura of your skin,
Soaking up the “could be good� oil rust.

I twist tight
Letting the dirty water tears flow
Cutting strange valleys in the sweat of my face
I quiver
And I dig my fingers tighter into you

Waiting for the inevitable moment
When one of us will
wake up
And not want us
anymore.

Again,
I wake up.

2.

In this dream
I am seated in a football stadium
It’s dark
I think they do ballet here.

All around me are strangers seated
Staring at a wooden stage.
A long line of women appear
Actresses, I think.
Look! It’s my mentor
She’s in a black lace corset
Why is she wearing that?
It’s not like her.

I think they are going to sing
A musical number maybe? from one of those shows?
You know? The ones with all the sex? And the corsets?
The ones with the happy ending?

But instead, they stand there
As if the music has forgotten to start
In total silence, in long rows
They stare down at us in our seats.
I fear they are deaf.

Then,
A noise breaks the tension
It’s coming from my chest

I look down
I know that it’s my heart
It’s ringing.
I forgot to put it on silent.
Damn it.

I freeze
And hope that no one can see
Through my ribcage
And know that I am the idiot this time
Who can’t keep be bothered to put her
Organs on vibrate.

3.

In this dream
You are dead
I don’t know how you died
It doesn’t seem important I guess.

I am sitting at the table in the dining room.
Only it was the patio table from our sandbox
Covered in yellow plastic,
A table cloth with small bibbed ducks.

A woman is there.
She thinks she is my mother,
But I have my suspicions.

she is putting down clipboards
telling me to sign in the box.
I don’t see a box
I don’t think there’s anything on it at all.

I don’t know what the paper is for,
Is it a confession? A proclamation? Certification?
Perhaps I should ask.

I watch myself stare.
My nostrils start to hum like a vacuum,
Sucking my vision into the first person.

Someone important is dead.
You.
But I can’t remember your name.
I think you’re my sister.
Sisters are slippery commodities these days.

I don’t want to do this alone.
But I can’t ask you for help.
You’re dead.
And it seems rude to ask favors
When I can’t even remember your name.

4.

In this dream
I am running down a sidewalk.
I cannot stop.
I know, if I stop running
The world will come crashing down,
Smashing into 25 pieces
Of Plexiglas.

But as I run
The sidewalk shifts
It warps like a rubber band
Snapping back and throwing me
Onto the ground.
I claw my way forward
Standing up
Only to be tossed off my feet.
I keep going,
Falling and fighting
Again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again.

5.

In this dream
I’m lying face down
On my bed.
My mouth is buried in mattress
There are no sheets
Except the ones I’ve erected
As a tent
Against the arctic snow
Of my room.
My kitchen is a pile of snow.

I lie quietly
Unmoving.

My heart is a foot,
A heavy heeled brown hiking boot
Just like the one I tore the sole off of
When I was walking yesterday.

The rubber soul flaps like lips now.
But I don’t listen.
I don’t want to hear the opinions
Of someone who traffics in dirt.

My heart is this boot
It is frightened.
It’s attempting to kill me
By helping me live.

It stomps through my rib caged
It clomps buoyantly against the mattress
Knocking,
Asking to be let out.

I can’t talk to you right now.
Rest already.

6.

In this dream
Everyone exists in animation
Colored in cartoon.

I am standing in a park
With the sun on my face.
A field stretches in front of me,
Crowded, joyful,
Filled with picnics, children, people
They exist as shifting blurs,
They are not in my way.
In fact,
I do not exist for them.
They cannot see me.

I realize
This is a dream.
I’ve heard of this happening.
I wonder, now that I know there are no boundaries
Of reality to fight,
What do I do?

I stand quietly.
Then I take off sprinting
Racing past the grass with my head tilted back
Boldfaced staring down the sun.
I compress and leap
Throwing myself into the arms of the air.

Moving through the sky
Is the same as moving through water,
It holds you up
But only if you know how to fight.

Tomorrow,
I hope I am reborn
As a kite.

Posted by Alissa McCourt at 11:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I finally got to sleep last night: dream logic

In this dream
I am above a crowd,
Onstage.
Behind a wall with a glass window.
I slap my hand against the pane
It is covered with smeary grime
And as my hand slides down,
Cutting a path through the slippery soot
The crowd laughs and jeers in ugly excitement
I don’t quite understand.

Again, I grope the window
And they holler slimy encouragements
Acting as though
My struggle to see them is as good as a strip tease

I move again,
Frantically,
Slapping the window
I feign struggle.
My fingerprints leave stripes
And I listen
to the sickening pleasure
My performance of entrapment
Provokes.

2.

In this dream,
Here is a machine all around me,
It’s the electric chair
Only
it’s the one you sit in to get your hair trimmed
You know, the one in the beauty salon.

All around me are wires
A million buttons and needles
Tiny switches with tiny red labels
Unreadable
I must have forgotten my glasses.

I am awaiting for an execution,
Or a hair trim,
(which ever comes first)
But I’m only nervous about
Getting to death on time
I hate being late.

She comes in,
She’s a lady I sewed costumes with once
Only now
She’s only a pair of pink hands
Her body is amorphous
I’m not sure it’s actually there.

She tells me
That I can do it myself if I like.
I try
But the electric shavers on wires
(dangling like puppets)
Won’t even take off my split ends.

“here�,She says,
stepping behind me where I cannot see her.
“Let’s see what this switch does…�

3.

In this dream
I am driving down the highway
In the blue black night.
But the highway is a wooden dock
Stretching out across a vast black expanse of water.

Looking out the window
I see waves
Frozen like a block of ice
White tipped like those Japanese’s wood prints
You used to hang framed in the hallway.
They slide across the waters surface
Like terrible sharp claws
Without ever crashing.

I see the end of the dock.
But I keep driving
Maybe it’s not the end after all.
But it is.

We fly off into the open air
For a moment I am flying
Frozen in the sky
Like a wave
Until I feel what must be water.

The car tires explode
And my nose is filled
With the hot acidy smell of burning rubber

When I look down,
I know I will see ribbons of wrinkled black tire
Melted into the skin of my breasts
And hanging like shredded skin.

4.

In this dream
I am tossing and turning on my bed
Pulling my sheets as I flop fish like
-my sheets are muslin and gauze
(Bandages)
I realize that I am cocooned
I mummified myself.
I know of course,
That I am a piece of my own art
And I just created myself.

I smell wet clay.
I think it’s the stuffing in my pillow.

5.

In this dream
I’m making sandwiches in my kitchen
Only its not my house,
It’s that garage next door
The one where we looked at each other naked
When we where children
And realized that our bodies weren’t as alike as we thought.
This time, it has a stove.

I think I’m a mother
But I haven’t given birth to any children.

I’m lining up brown paper lunches
In long rows over the garage floor.

I take a bite of a sandwich
It splits open in my hands
One end peeling up, the other peeling down
Blooming like a flower

But my mouth is full of gasoline like acid
Hot stinging bitter tang
Fuzzy burn.

It must be the tomato.

6.

In this dream
There is a bee
The honey looking hornet type.
Its close up in focus, as if under a microscope lense.

I see it in flashes, in time with the bang of a heavy door slamming
*slam (head) *slam (top view) *slam (fractured eye)

All this is underscored by a heavy screeching buzzing
Like a high pitched rusty chain,
You know, the kind of chain saw they used to clean your teeth at the dentist?
That buzzing polish brush?

I don’t want to do what I’m doing.
I want to stop
But I cannot.
With I tweezer, I see that someone (maybe me)
Is peeling back a layer of “skin� on the bees back.
It cracks like the wax paper peanut skin.
The buzzing continues.
I really wish I could stop.

7.

In this dream
I am playing in my backyard
But it’s not my backyard
It’s an enormous Candy Land board game.
Gumdrop pink

I see myself from a birds eye view
Running up a neon hard candy green bridge
As I reach the crest
I see an enormous baby blue whale
Beached on the grass.
Its looks like the toy
I buried in my sandbox
And never found again.

I watch for a minute
Then race to join the other children
Climbing its tail
And sliding down its glistening sides

Posted by Alissa McCourt at 11:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)