RUMINATE

RUMINATE
When I sleep, I dream of you
Deirra Clyburn

01/04/2022
You haunt my dreams every single night.
Sometimes it’s just a flicker. A memory. And
sometimes it’s looks nothing like you. And other
times, the resemblance is uncanny.
There is always the presence of excessive
weather like snow in a yard, slopping down the
rooftops, or the swell of darkness around the
damp drizzle of rain. My childhood bedroom,
my living room, and the dining room strains
around me like the walls of a translucent cell.
You are voiceless, for it is only a dream, but you
paralyze me, chain me until I wake and wonder if
you’ve come to the surface with me.
In the woods
The trickle of consciousness danced around my brain,
elusive and difficult to hold down. A pressing nag against the
base of my skull. My skull was a heavy, penetrable thing. When I
turned my head from side to side I could hear it, as if there were
loose change, or gears turning hurriedly in my head. When my
eyes opened, it was against their own accord. The white light of
heaven came down on me- scorching and bright, and soaked me
in its afterglow. And it took me much, much later to realize it was
not the light of heaven or the long shuffle to that effervescent
tunnel, but the moonlight.
A name left my lips, faint like the shy forbidden whispers
of affection, and though I do not recognize it, it felt as familiar as
a first language.
My body ached in something only gnashed teeth and
throbbing could define as pain. my shirt clung to my chest, to the
curly hairs that has been since my pubescent years. My hair was a
net, a web of long dark vines.
An awful sound split through my reverie. Like a blaring
siren, it cut through the fuzz of nothingness that I slipped back
into. I opened my eyes again. They were heavy and my lashes wet,
and swirling above my head were identically shaped trees, dancing
around another in a rushed game of cat and mouse.
My legs were weak and my bones were exposed. My heart
thrummed, thrummed so quickly, sheathed between ribs that
could barely contain it. The silence was loud. The night was so
black that the darkness vibrated. A streak of light faded in and
out.
The dirt is cold between my toes, intrusive and earthy.
A voice- a woman’s voice- filled the air, and my feet
moved and I quickly ran.
I felt watched, observed as I raced through that pinnacle
of darkness, through the trees, and towards that patch of elusive
light. In the open field, there lie her body, and I moved faster, my
legs overzealous, my mind moving much faster than my cold,
fleshy body and I stumbled blindly into the uneven ferns.

When I regained my bearings, I touched her skin. My
hand drew back red and wet. Yellow eyes met mine as I turned
her over.
There was a wound so deep that the creature's chest rose
and fell unevenly. It trembled immediately at the sight of me; Its
body writhed in futility, for it could barely move.
“Sorry” passed my lips, but first, it welled at my throat,
hitching there like an animalistic whimper. A plead for
forgiveness was uttered against a sticky nape, and reciprocity was
nuzzled into my torso. Pain welled in my abdomen and my grip
on its fur tightened, its hairs curled between my fingers. The
sudden, human, treacherous urge to live overtook me.
I snapped the creature’s neck easily between my arms,
and the pain only grew deeper and deeper as if my heart were
being tugged from down below, as though Satan had reached in
from my bare feet and wrapped his veins around me.
It did not die for the death it so selfishly forced upon
her.
No, I killed it because of the warmth- that quickly turned to
heat. Passion quickly turned to sweat and to slick and ruined
furniture, to tattered clothes. In its death, I felt suffocated
underneath its weight, just as I had when it was alive.
For as long as I could remember, I was unrecognizable.
She was no longer her. No longer mine.
Bury me
beneath the
slopes of
reality
Other times, like an errant, inescapable fire,
I feel consumed by you, Love. I feel
overwhelmed with expectation and I want to be
emptied. I want to be detached from you.
Excessive, needy, and broken.
At that moment, it was unrecognizable, had fallen into
my arms like prey, like game. And as I disentangled myself from
the chased kiss I did against its forehead, I dragged it from the
clearing. I’d cut it open for its heart, its lungs. The feeling in my
fingers and quickly my shoulder and hips escaped me and I
dropped somewhere uphill.
The grass is lush and wet against my cheek.
January's appearance is a soft and steady one.
Strong almost, in its gentle push for change. In saunters
affirmations, new beginnings, and relief from ruminations of

the past. Despite this, they do not leave me fully, nor have
their dark sticky presence detached from my insides, has the
goo let up its tangle around my ribs. Its hold is sharp on my
heart. It’s a web- thin and spindly, round and round my brain.
I feel relief, awe at the light of smiles, and the laughter of
independence that lights up those dark places. I'm not
immune, but I am getting there.
As I lay in bed with a heavy heart, a racing mind, and a
tongue that betrays my desires for not only nutrition, but also
my needs that make me human. I realize how far I have come
on this wintery morning. That the slush of snow under my
boots and the cold are not so bitter but comforting, beauty in
its intensity and its shamelessness. Because with January came
the 1st day of snow in ages. And with January, like snow, came
growth and promise, and the warm, suffocating swell of hope
that can build and fall and despite its wreckage or the
inconvenience, can still be seen as beautiful in the aftermath.
I hope, wish to be as thunderous, as peaceful, as fallen
snow on a January morning.
Touch at first is curious, searching, playful,
learning.
But it almost always turns knowing,
uncurious, and deadly sharp
The unsaid cuts through a sore wound in a
way that is familiar.
I’ve anticipated this. I bandaged it up in
gauze and fabrics
in frantic, well-timed glances and aloofness
But in a moment of weakness only known
as human, I brandished only a sliver of my
flesh to you.
Spring
The back seat of his pickup truck buckles underneath me
and with my eyes closed, and the sweet cold threat of rain and
night, I can feel his eyes on me. They are at times fleeting,
flittering across my features and then hastily over the space
between us, and other times, they linger. Unabashed and daring,
his eyes terrify me, worry me, uplift me with their transparency.
The sun sinks into the lake solemnly; until it’s reduced to
a watery cavern made up of yellow, orange, and faint reds.
He angled his head to one side as he strums the cords of his
guitar with thick, hairy fingers. A very human sound came from
the back of his throat.
Thum Thum thumthumthum
Thum Thum thumthumthum

Shivers race up my spine.
And despite my wet eyes, he does not stop
playing. Bathed in sunlight, I could see the length
of his lashes on his closed lids and the furrow of
eyebrows, thick and bushy like small little
caterpillars.
When his eyes open, I am consumed, if not swallowed whole, by
the black hole within them.
It strains itself from my fingers
Sweet, not bountiful but sweet
Teeth-rottenly sweet
There are walls between you & I in a
text I cannot read
Old wounds resurface like the loch
ness or something of deep-sea
And now your walls are underwater,
and the words escape me
Bond
The washing machine made its usual hum as it reached its
last cycle and the room was still except for the tense
breathing of both of us. He sat across the table with his
palms flat on the surface and his eyes did not meet mine. I
remember when we first got the curtains behind him; I
remember the warm press of his hands in mine, the press of
his dark hair against my shoulder blade as those hands
found a familiar place around my waist.
His arms wrap around me and he draws me closer, close
enough that his mouth tickles the crest of my collarbone and
we sway, sway sway until all I breathe is him, see is the bright
light of the ceiling tile, but I know when he touches me it’s
not me, he sees, it’s not my jaw he presses his kisses into.
I remember it was cold. Underdressed in a dress thin
enough to pass as a second skin and a coat seasoned with
ash and liquor, I curled on the pavement outside of the bar.
Snow danced under my heels.
You asked me if I was, ok?
You said not to be corny, but you’re the prettiest girl I’ve ever seen
Now, I can’t remember if you said that or if I wish you did?
He helped me to my feet. His grip was firm, but his hands
were nail bitten. I had mistaken the hesitation to place his
hands on my back as tenderness, and thought him

chivalrous when I didn’t find myself pressed into the wall, or
wedged between shit-filled trash cans.
This is good for both of us
He was afraid, and it enthralled me.
He had several drinks in him, so he mentioned his mother.
He loved her. Even inebriated, I could hear it. It was in the
quiet way he spoke of her, all warm and fond. He mentioned
his father. There was a hesitation there.
Are You Waiting for Something Better?
I told him nothing, but told him everything.
I invited him in but I also didn’t. My mouth didn't move,
but my eyes did. They raked his body, head to toe.
And the gentleman he was, he stayed there.
Get in safe alright?
Or was it, can I come inside?
But now he does not touch me. He pressed his hands into
the edge of the table, while the other curled around the
glasses his mother gave us as a housewarming gift.
When he leaves, I do not reach for him.
Please don’t leave
The touch of spring air is gentle and carries
something delicate and fruitful. The smell is
sparse and redolent in the heavyweight of debris
and cigarette smoke. Sweet like peach, like cherry
like pine. The parts of me, and there are many,
extend towards it, long for it. I stretch over cable
lines, and street lamps, and cars packed with tiny
little humans.
1 There is a knight
No shine, no armor
Just a princess locked in a tower
Leave
I need you
2 The gates of her abode are the walls of her mind
And the bridge brimming and bubbling with the
warmth of lava, is the wreckage of all she's ever known

3 Suitors flock but she cannot see them passed the fog of
her window
She never wanted it. No. Not with her music box and
her sewing and her fairy tales.
4 No, she did not want it when a seasoned unsuspecting
knight stumbled through her walls
Her green eyes were wistful, her smile fractured, her
ginger hair unruly
5 No, she did not want it when the thought, or perhaps
the lack of; she beckoned the wounded knight into her
bedroom and tended to her wounds
6 No, no, no. she grasped for her resolve.
7 The knight's experienced kisses lingered on the mouth
of the princess, on the shoulder, the hair, and the
tongue of the princess
.
8 As the Knight made her way down the princess's spiral
stairs case, for the first time the princess wondered.
9 Wondered. And wondered. And wondered.
10 For the first time, the princess scrubbed her open palm
across her fogged window.
What are you so afraid of?
I wonder if a snake feels at home as it sheds its
skin for another. How is it, to constantly live
where your home is ever-changing? Doesn't that
feel dysmorphic?
At home with you
Elevate.
Elevate.
Elevate.
Something small and withered pierced the delicate tissue of
my heart. My arms twitched in need, my neck, my head
twisted back as though arching towards something bearded,
soft, and rough.
The feeling persisted as if it were growing, gnawing on the
fleshy red thing pulsing inside of me, and suddenly the
weight of the air betrayed me. Something pulled me down,
down, down.
Down

Wilted fabric fluttered, malleable to the touch of the wind.
Headfirst, feet first, hands first.
Something moist and soiled kissed the arch of my foot. The
grains caressed the crook of my neck. Grit enveloped my
torso and pressed into me like an embrace.
Oh, to be kissed. Oh, to be loved by you. Oh, to feel- to feel to feel
A rush of sand up my inner thigh, under the thin white
fabric of my cloth. Back arched, I saw red swell around me
like a coral wave. They work between my fingers and applied
pressure there. They nibble a trail of warmth across my
lower back, behind my ears, and left debris littered in my
hair.
Shame was unknown to me; The slightest touch and my
body tensed with need. Soft, I was.
And that feeling, edged with new feelings, blossomed. My
heart trembled, it whistled, it hummed. Beneath the arch of
red and the touch of sand, I was a tenor, an alto, a soprano.
Pink. Samon. Crimson. Burst under my eyelids.
I was languid with blurring vision and around me, little
spiraling figures began to emerge from the surface. Hands
urged me upright. Blissed, I leaned into a chest, caressed a
thigh, but the figures did not react, not with their blank
stares and porcelain faces.
Hands pried me open, hands warm and sticky, massaged
every inch of my skin. My head lolled as my dress tore to
make room for errant fingers with hangnails and polished
nails and stubby little fingers.
My eyes opened to steady ones. There was a muted
pounding just below my ears.
I was lathered and touched and bathed. I was comforted,
safe, and unprotected.
My bare body was sticky with my blood, soused until every
inch of my skin was red. My shoulders, my hips, my face.
Though they do not return my affections, they allow me to
lean into them.
And I can hear it pounding. Ba bump. Ba bump.
Wounded from my fall and the errant hands that
manhandled it for more, I can feel it - aching.
Ba bump
Ba bump
Ba
Bump
Ba-

Sometimes I want you to swallow me
whole and consume, oh sweet love, please
please devour me whole
Mother,
Vast Majority
I am a blank slate.
I am not real
I am the empty pages of a diary,
Waiting to be filled and discarded.
Light and complacent, I am, to the press of your thumb
against my binding
Passed onto the next and to the next
The giants- the girl refuses to tell me her name. Her eyes
are gentle but there’s a wet, deeply thorough fear behind
them, as always. Before she closed her eyes to avoid mine,
she danced away from my touch.
today the moon looked like a steaming bowl of yellow pepper
broth.
each of its craters was deep, thumb-pressed impressions, each
indent, and hole an imperfect mark of realness.
I wasn't only a spectator,
It made the structured homes around me, the trees that trembled
with life, and seat beneath me feel fabricated.
The seat belt unbuckled its self-releasing me from its clutches,
and the windshield melted away like the sizzle of butter in a pan.
My boots hit the dashboard and dangled over the trunk bed.
The air, cold and terse, whipped my reddening cheeks and
tousled my hair.
And the moon.
Ah.
The moon appeared to grow as the suburban hellscape around
me ebbed away. The voice of a friend in the front seat of my car
was meaningless, drowned out in its rhythmic hum.

I felt weightless and heavy, melting, vibrating and warm with joy.
Love me more
Hands that are not yours touches my hips
and I pretend. I pretend that those green eyes are
brown, that your smooth face is between my
fingers, that your signature lipstick would leave
trails of black ink on my lips, that those calloused
hands are dainty, long fingered and baby smooth.
When I was a child, I was always told to pray
before I want to sleep so that my soul would be saved in
heaven. If I did not pray, when I died the lord would not
save my soul from damnation. To the ears of a child
this instilled fear of course, fear was the zest to the
disaster of a recipe called religion. But it was distant, the
statement only taking form like a curse uttered over and
over until it became a mantra. A truth.
My praying days has since passed and were
short lived but I distinctly remember the
softness of the blanket on my cheek, the
awkwardness of my elbows as I pressed
my palms together and my knees on the
creaking wooden floor.
I dreamed of a black night speckled with stars,
and light and I think it was my little version of that
promise. The moon and the stars became my heaven as
the gentle, sudden press of sleep pulled me under.