Thaumatrope

Power dream
I meet him again at a party or a reunion; whatever it is I know we are supposed to be meeting like this—publicly, after all these years. We are being honored at the event simply for being who we are, or were. The onlookers indicate the only way we can show them we understand that gift is to kiss one another. The tension is terrible and wonderful because, after all, the tension is my favorite part. I do not want to actually kiss him. I want to be poised forever in the moment where we both know we are about to kiss, where I retain some semblance of control.

The dream of fantasy
The basement is cluttered with people. The walls are cinder-block, the floor is cement, dark corners lurk everywhere, full of bodies. My boyfriend is over there. We are moving in together in three months. But I address a nearby boy, which is strange since I typically do not talk to people I don’t know. Something is settled so I can be who I am not. The boy speaks in hipster clichés about the time he drove to Colorado, how he picked up some new album on vinyl, the trite tripe I insult outside of this basement. I listen like I’m hearing it for the first time, which I suppose I am. I’m riveted by how much he believes in his performance, how certain he is that my interest is authentic. He maintains constant eye contact and I pretend I am taking him very, very, seriously, though I am seriously rude, questioning everything he says and asking for explanations like I’m a decade older. I might as well be. I am moving toward an apartment in Omaha, Nebraska with a dishwasher, off-street parking, a job with retirement benefits. This boy is telling me he might go check out “Portland, Arrigan.” Later, my boyfriend accuses me of flirting with the boy, but I do not know how to say that I couldn’t stop egging him on. I couldn’t walk away from someone who wanted to convince me.

Restraint dream
I arrive at his house. Actually, it is his parents’ house, because while I know where he really lives now, the Google Maps screenshot has not fixed itself deep enough in my subconscious. So I substitute the house in which I knew him. I am in town with my own family, finally doing what he proposed by email fifteen years ago—stopping to visit on my way somewhere else. He has a wife, or a girlfriend, but she is not there. Neither is my husband. My children evaporate once I get inside his parents’ house and his mother greets me. My children were a ruse to show him that there was no strange intent on my part; I would never do something inappropriate in front of them. He looks inordinately pleased.

The dream of acknowledgment
He asks, “Which bitch is which?” We are clustered around a swing on the playground, whirling above the sawdust, someone’s legs tucked tight in a tire, body bent inward to increase the centrifugal speed. Someone is hurtling in orbit and someone else is pushing, keeping the rotation intact. There is no question he knows which bitch is which; we have been in the same elementary school for the last five years. Bitch does not sting, because I’m not sure it’s a slur. That word’s supposed to be as bad as fuck, as bad as shit, but I think it’s like saying hot damn. I am just grateful he has bothered to address me.

Confession dream
This is the confrontation for which I have been preparing over the last twenty years. The veil lifts on the two of us alone somewhere and my limbs lighten like they did when I used to imagine him surprising me by showing up in my town. He has shown up after all. I want to kiss him so badly I can barely hold myself together. I am desperate to see if we still know each other’s mouths all these years later—to see if we had imprinted something vital upon each other when we taught each other how to kiss. But I do not. Somehow I know that by refusing to fulfill desire, I can keep it alive. Instead, I look at him and I am overcome with warmth. My tongue loosens and I tell him—not indirectly tell a friend, not write a Livejournal, not allude in an email quiz, not obfuscate in song lyrics appended to a message—how much I loved him. How long I loved him. To ventilate those feelings, to see his face soften, feels like all I have ever wanted. The thaumatrope spool untwists and hurtles forward, then backward, then forward. I make him approach me. I make him recede.

The dream of correction
He does not like me. He likes me, but he doesn’t like me like that. He has liked every other girl in our large friend group “like that,” regardless of their availability. My lack of desirability allows me to talk to him without worrying that he’s taking it the wrong way, but I also put on more mascara. I have a boyfriend and I do not want to trade him in—I’m not even attracted to my friend—but I also do not want to be the only girl excluded from this free-for-all. He will not stay in a room alone with me. He finds a reason to leave when I arrive. I sequester our friends and whisper at them, I don’t know why he doesn’t like me, alluding to situation after situation, hoping someone will suggest maybe he is avoiding you because you are the one he likes the most. Nobody does. But I catalog avoidance as potential, and I dream of power.