I AM DREAM

The baked shell and dirt road runs straight to the horizon. Heat makes the distance swim. Sweat burns Her eyes while the cries She holds back are shards of broken glass to Her throat.

There are two monsters who walk behind this six year old girl. Each has two faces, one before and one behind. The front faces coo and tell Her She is pretty and that they love Her. The rear facing, backbiting faces are loud enough for Her to hear their hateful words.

“Fat”

“An embarrassment”

“Why can’t you be more like ---------?

The praying mantis with elbow joints bigger than her upper arms and knee joints bigger than her thighs adjust the horn rimmed glasses.

“This never happened on my side of the family.”

The mustachioed pear with pendulous breast bobs his head in agreement.

“ Of course not, of course not.”

The smiling faces in front continue their false praise as they hide the belts and switches behind their backs. I have to get Her away from them once and for all.

I am dream

Not a real  person anymore, I’ve been disposed of. I’m just a hope, just an idea. This is Her recurring nightmare, even as an adult, and it’s my penance to come here every night. I hold Her hand or brace Her up with Her arm over my shoulder. I keep Her on Her feet, I keep Her moving so they won’t whip Her. The easier we move along, the less hurtful words they hurl at Her. These remarks cut Her worse than the stripes on Her legs. I have heard the late night sobbing from their scars. Never good enough for them, so never good enough for Herself.

“I love You, You are wanted exactly as You are.”

 Please let this be what She hears, what she knows. Day after day I not only tell her that She is beautiful, I try to show it in my affection and desire. She wants to turn out the lights, embarrassed from years of not being enough. She wants to hide what She has been told for years is too much, but eventually I have proven to her that She is more than acceptable, She is perfect as herself. Slowly the flower unfurls and opens to the light that She has hid from for so long. Years of worship, years of honest cravings, years of proudly boasting She is mine, slowly cover the scars. Little by little She comes to accept that She is worthy of affection.

I am dream

There is a dreamlike magic that allows me to scribble marks on paper, those marks can then be deciphered and read by others thousands of miles and possibly thousands of years away. Studies show that as people read, even without speaking or moving their mouths, their vocal chords mimic the movement made to actually say those words. Those simple marks become movement in another’s larynx as they read. Even if they don’t speak, words form in a body I will never meet, or meet again. So read and say these words to yourself, I am pretty, I am worthy, I am desirable exactly as I am.

I am dream.

Not a real person, an idea, a hope that picks up a pen and tries to put down truths that will lift Her heart above the swirling swill She survives in. Simple symbols that ring louder than cymbals when they resonate in Her soul. A phantasm that tries to bear the bitter truths of the pain I have caused the only sweet love I have ever known. Years of proclaiming Her perfection, erased by my indiscretions with another. I hurt Her more than those monsters ever did. I cheated and erased those years of positive affirmation. If I turn my head just right in the mirror, I can see that second hateful face. My actions speak louder than anything it could say. I was bad dream.

It’s not enough to just make marks on paper, I need to make an impression on that impressive other, known as Her. It is my honor and my pleasure to rage against the idiot box that ignores Her individuality, and magazines that magnify imagined inefficiencies. A culture of cutting remarks for those who don’t cut  the perfect mark of the media’s ideal woman. So I whisper in Her ear, let Her hear, “You are perfection personified “.

I am dream

Your size is the only prize that has value, and Your pride is the only sign that I have told You often and true, that perfectly perfect is always You. To dispel enough of the lies that hinder Your self esteem. Let You roll along and gather steam, steamrolling nay sayers while  building Your own momentum. There is nothing more attractive than a confident You. Beyond Queen, you’re Empress of the entire world you inhabit. You are a dream come true. A vision in man’s waking hours, a fantasy in his late night longings.

YOU ARE DREAM!