If I am approached tonight, snarling and flailing of arms is likely.

Tonight’s a little different from the other days this week, because today – TODAY! – the sleeping drug of choice remained behind my bedroom curtain, on the window ledge. There was no reach around for “Skip-A-Day, the easy way!” and I got through an entire case of diet pop.

HI! I’M BACK! I’M STILL DEPRESSED BUT NOW I’M WIDE AWAKE, TOO!

I have had the worst fucking dream. I feel like saying fuck a lot, right now. I just feel like fucking putting it in there, every fucking which way. It’s as though if I keep saying it enough, the audience will be screened of all those people who like to say, “People who use profanity just do so, because they don’t have anything intelligent to say. If they were really writers or artists, they’d be able to find a better word.”

I, I, I, I, I use so many I’s when I write; does anyone ever notice that? Hate that shit. I’m like a. Proverb whore. Aren’t those proverbs? Pro..nouns. Conjunctive adjectivory paraphrashables. HAHAHA. Remember the horrors of chalkboards and those sentence parts, being underlined and some bitch standing up in front of the class, asking you to raise your hand and point out the “prepositional phrase”? Absolutely hilarious. The who-a-whatshional what! “How bout’ I tell you to get fucked” as you spun the ruler you’d walked out of math class with, around on the end of the pencil.

No, that’s not what you’d say or do. But you felt that way, if you were me.

Prepositional phrase. If I had only chosen the path of the prepositional phrase, I wouldn’t be scared to death to type out what I feel is a justly predicate of this sentence. But let’s not rush into the self-hating habit yet; I was trying to talk about my dream.

I’m asleep but dreaming that I am sleeping through the same night of the same year. (which is already a cool night trick) Although my eyes are physically closed and also closed in the dream, it’s as though a copy of me is resting in spirit, looking out. It’s like in movies where there’s a dead body and then the person’s spirit steps out of itself, only I’m not dead. So I’m asleep and I’m looking at the ceiling at the same time, thanks to the art of the dream, I think — I think the brain was functioning as a security camera, maybe.

A smoky, black figure reaches down from hovering above me and –

Immediate pain,

Only it’s not choking me with arms. It has dropped down in some unexplainable way, choking me with dread….

Absolute dread, suffocating my heart,

It feels like everyone you loved has just been murdered, and that something hates you and wants to hurt you –
Then all of the dread stops. I started to wake up from the extremity of emotion, but was still too groggy to come out of it. Quite deep in sleep, it dropped down and

ATTACKED ME AGAIN –

INSTANT PAIN, like being strangled with terror. I’m feeling horrible. I’m feeling so sad….

Then I woke up.

There was nothing above me. Still a little afraid…pretty shaken. I closed my eyes tight and went back to sleep.

Well, last night, I had a dream that someone annoying came over and tried to wake me from my nap. He kept shoving me. He kept pushing me, to wake up. I said something like, “I know you’re there but I can’t wake up, I swallowed half a bottle of Codine-

The words came so clear, I woke myself up because I’d said “bottle of Codine” out loud.

And for a moment, my body just ached like I’d been brutally shaken.