Once Again, I Dreamt of Water

 

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Thousands have lived without love, not one without water.

W. H. AUDEN

 

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Prologue

We all have a tree inside of us. Finding it is just a matter of time.

Sahar Delijani, Children of the Jacaranda Tree 

 

Sometimes I dream a couple drops of water...

Dusk is here, or at least what they call dusk. Throughout the years, I have heard  the winds whisper his retiring name: T w i l i g h t, T w i l i g h t.

I have observed the young Breezes howling ravenous, to Time himself, as if he were their very own love: "Stay with us, Time. Play with us! Can we dance?" 

I’m feeling alone, yet happy to be a Jacaranda, alive. I am the only one of my kind, around this quiet neighborhood. How I know - a young ladybug told me so.

Blessed I am, and I might say cursed to have to be so intrusive. I’ve no choice. I have to admit  I cannot help myself. I have grown fond of the vibrant couple who live on the other side of my window - which is my mirror and my pillow; my life reflected in billows. My green sometimes auburn leaves, like hair, shiver in the soft fingers of The Winds. The lives of Alondra and Estéfano are my daily coffee and bread. I yearn to be flesh, to have ten plump fingers instead of soggy stale branches. I yearn to have blood, instead of sap.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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1 The Bleeding Jacaranda

 

ESTEFANO: I drifted into dreams and entered a sandy world. At the end of the tunnel shone a light, and a river that opened to sea. I saw myself aged two, eating dirt, making mud cakes, and all of a sudden growing up to find the girl of my dreams; Alondra? No, no – this girl was way more chic. She was different. She was more assertive, and sexier in my eyes.  We were about to...and we did. I felt like melting into her soul. Yet she was strange, absurd too,  I could see as I looked into her eyes, and could read everything in her. She was a book of calligraphy blurred, with muddy hands and pictures of blood. I  felt a jolt, and woke up with a strong urge.  Alondra complained faintly, No, amor, and rejected my hand as it crept up her thigh. My lips opened and closed like a pouty fish pressed against her slightly fuzzy back.  I reproached her, You don't desire me.

I'm sleepy, she said. I relented, and turned. Minutes passed. I have to go now. Someone's got to work. I slid my work pants on, and buttoned my shirt on the way out. 

I drive a shuttle for the hospital, carrying the sick and mentally ill. I get along better with these people than I do with anyone else in the world. I play no music on the radio for them. Instead, we talk. We have the best conversations ever. I feel sometimes like the doctor, the therapist, the parent. The people I drive, they are so vibrant! Take Davey Angel: he is anemic, with bouts of depression. He’s the deepest guy I’ve ever met. He doesn’t believe in love at first sight, let alone in one night stands. And this - I admire in the guy: how he is taking responsibility for his mental health, unlike most guys his age - who in denial that they have depression prefer to drown out their mental health woes with alcohol or drugs; Davey doesn’t, he trusts his doctor and meds instead.

 

Then there’s Anna - Dios mío - the psychiatric patient with the juiciest lips I’ve seen. The moment I saw her, I immediately felt a deep connection with, a deja-vu if you will.

I go to work, and Alondra leaves the girls at school. But I don’t really work. Anna and I get away from the world again, at a cheap motel, on the way to her doctor’s appointment. Anna doesn’t mind the harshly starched sheets, the white walls, or the lack of champagne. And I like that about her, the fact that she doesn’t mind. I also like her small breasts and small waistline. She is bipolar. I like her because she has a love for life that surpasses Alondra’s. It’s so startling. I think about this as we cuddle in bed. "I love being with you, you know that, right?" I hold Anna's face in my hands, and I peck her lips. She turns her sad face aside and says, Pero no soy la mujer de tu vida. Her words echo in my heart: But I am not the woman of your life. I feel like a jerk because I know it's true. Anna, you know, I never promised you a rose garden! She responds, sitting up in bed, How ‘bout a rose, a single rose? I change the subject on her, Can't we just live the moment? Just live the moment? Her face crumples in disgust. Anna - weeping - rises from the disheveled bed to change into her skinny jeans. Without her underwear, she dons her stockings, her black boots, her blouse without  a bra. She doesn't allow me to touch her. Her face tightens up and in a low voice she snarls, Leave me alone!  Anna, I say. I want to show that I care about her, but I don’t insist on pursuing her.  

ALONDRA: I  chopped pepperoni, mushroom, and sprinkled mozzarella, garlic, plus a pinch of oregano over the sauce and dough. It was a pizza for my girls and my boyfriend. Outside, raindrops popped on the metal awning when I realized through the kitchen window - besides the gray sky - a puddle formed around my forgotten pink stilettos outside stuck in the meat of the mud. I kicked them off that one night two weeks ago, me and Estéfano returned from a party, and I was tired of walking up high. I placed the pizza in the oven, and removed my apron. I opened the front doors of my house; without an umbrella – I rushed to retrieve my high heels before they'd get ruined. I had gone down the middle cement path, and as I stepped in the mud in flip flops, Estéfano embraced me so that I wouldn’t fall in the cloying mess.

"Leave them there. I'll buy you new ones," he said.

We smiled in silence, and he carried me to our room.

The pizza will burn, mi amor, I protested.  I know. He kissed my neck. Alright, just because the girls need to eat.   

*  

Morning came, and I slid off our cal-king sized bed, and now shuffled through envelopes. It was a brand new day in my City of Angels. My desk was next to the wall that was opposite our bed in the room, where the tree outside gazed in through the sliding doors. The jacaranda warmed my space, and enlightened my life. I held a pen, and wrote standing up, hunched over the desk, hit by an idea for a poem. Niño, de mi corazon - ¿quién soy yo sin ti? Mi niño, mi niño, mi niño - casi. Little boy of my heart, who am i without you? My boy, my child, my little boy - almost. I finished scrawling the last word. Estéfano moaned and went back to sleep. Going, I promised. Amor, I'm sorry. I already miss you! See?  I tucked my leg between his legs, squeezed him, and kissed his nose. I felt his back, which was far more soft than mine. I am his girl, yet we have two more princesses. One is eight, her name Cecilia, named after the Saint, and Estéfani is five, and obviously named after her Daddy.  

 

 

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Jdubya

beautiful writing, subtle turn of phrase that makes me smile at the clever way you describe. Beautiful.

2 We Will Live Forever

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3 The Makeshift Rainbow

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4 Our Footprints Are Being Left in The Sand

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5 Gingerbread Girl

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6 In His Hands

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7 Roaring Heart

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8 You're Beautiful

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9 Crying Over Paella

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10 Castle in the Sand Failing Relationship

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11 What Rivers

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12 Half-moon Ears

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13 Down the Streets of Playa del Rey

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14 He Would Know From One Look in My Eyes

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15 Falling Apart

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16 To Forgive

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17 Tears, I Know, Are Falling

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18 One Hundred Paper Cranes

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19 I've Never Searched for God

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20 Your Sleeping Beauty

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21 Back to Los Angeles' garden

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22 Written On My Skin By God

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23 Let Me In Your Blue Heart?

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24 Light-years-of-Tenderness

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25 Dream of Downtown

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26 Our Perfect Love

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27 To Be Released

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28 Sweet Lemon Tree

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29 Before We Die

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30 Alondra's Dream

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31 Metamorphosis

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~

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