Hauntings.

I had a dream last night. I dreamed that the boy I love sat at a piano bench.
Lyrics and notes flowed off long fingers.
But just the fingers of one hand.
I had a dream last night that the other hand rested on a suit pant-clad leg. On top of that hand was another–another's. Smooth, painted purple fingernails adorned the feminine appendages. Curled around his. When I saw her face–it wasn't mine–I woke.

This morning I woke to a sagging face, a sluggish body, a welling despair. To eyelids crusted together by the serums of my body.
This morning I picked away the sleep, rubbing my eyes roughly. And the image of hands intertwined stamped on my brain.
The cavity in my chest pulsed erratically.

This afternoon I was rejected. Not by the boy I loved, but by the future I'd thought I had.
This afternoon I was rejected. Not by the boy I loved, but by expectations.

How many times had I heard it? 

You'll get in. You're good enough to get in. No–you better make it in. 

How many times had I heard it?

You'll get in. There is no other option. What does it say about you if you don't–no. There is no room for that possibility. 

Today I was rejected by life. Today I truly wished I didn't have to breathe and consume and think and breathe again and–live. 

I wished I could reject life. 

A curdled brain, an empty cave of a chest, shaking. What use was I? 

And I wished I could have had the dream instead.


Note: After receiving a tentative call from a friend asking if I was okay, I realized I should make clear that this never happened! I didn't have the dream and I haven't been rejected from college (...yet?). Heh.