By Emilee Petersmark

I had a dream that I sat down in the tub,

Cut open my stomach with my bare hands

And lay in wait to drown in myself--

I bled out your face with shaken apathy,

Smearing you on the smooth tiles and

SInking all tormented apprehension

In your blurry face;

My insides were scalding but all I felt

was numb.

I had a dream that I swallowed those pills,

Then lay on the kitchen floor

And waited to die--

My head exploded with a billion screaming voices

That battled to drown you out.

And when, finally, you crawled out my ear

To look me square in the eye,

I cunvulsed into violent seizures and

slipped away.

I fell asleep thinking of things you said--

My final thoughts a question of my

Imperfect adoration for a detatched little boy...

And when I woke up, screaming my head off,

Your memory smiled and tried to comfort me,

But in the end, only succeded

in scaring me to death.