Dream States

I had a dream where David fell into a snow bank. We’d been walking along on a path with bricks on either side of it in a place that looked very much like parts of Central Park. I was walking on the bricks to the right, leaving David room on the left. He was talking and we were going up a slight incline. He mentioned how difficult it was and how perhaps he should consider getting a motorized chair. I laughed and told him that almost a year ago I remember a doctor telling him the same thing. Just as I was answering him, he suddenly dropped off the path and went sideways into a giant snow bank. It took me a few seconds to even realize what had happened. I just stood there seeing nothing but wheels and his shoes sticking out of the snow. I panicked and began trying to dig him out. I couldn’t pull the chair or move it because it was too heavy, so I began frantically searching for the seatbelt of the chair, so I could get him out. By the time I got him out of his chair and pulled the snow from his nostrils and his mouth, he was limp. I remember there were girls with giant hair weaves across the street. They had those long acrylic nails and they were dressed for the summer, even though there was snow everywhere. They were laughing at us and I began screaming at them to call 911. I remember that David was small in my arms, like a child of maybe eight or nine years old. There was a lightness to him, not the dead weight that is the reality of his paralyzed body. Even in the dream, I noticed this odd change, thinking to myself that he didn’t weigh enough…it was the feeling you have when you misplace a purse or don’t feel the normal weight that you’re accustomed to carrying during a day. It was as if I’d forgotten the rest of him. His eyes were closed and I kept telling him to breathe. He never did. And then I woke up.


I realized this morning that I have dreamed the deaths of every man I've slept with but one.