Burning Man

I dreampt I used to know many years ago a beautiful pink-haired boy who needed a name. I thought ‘Puck’ and ‘Mustardseed’ but those were already taken. His hair was pink but for some reason I called him Verdi. In retrospect it could not have been the right name for him. It was perhaps the right name for the deem, which I remember in mud-on-steel greys and leathery blacks with bright deep splotches of alcoholic green, glimmering in unsuspected places. Sometimes in my dreams I am almost caught up with him again. Sometimes I hear someone call my name. More fool I, to fall in love with a specter, I never dream the same people twice. And then I remember as immediate as bloodcramps the web of playa dust on his ears in the sunlight, or catching the loop of his earrings between my teeth. I remember kissing the taste of purple everclear in his mouth and screwdriver under his tongue and his hands grabbing at my denimed crotch as we hugged in front of God and everyone. None of it, of course, ever happened. Friday night, jealous, resentful, dizzy from lack of food and sleep and wanting a cigarette I wandered away from the tents to fall asleep by a bonfire burning in the middle of the playa. And I dreampt of the most enchanted children. I dreampt the dream I always have, of the world removed from everything and flooding under constant dust and rain. There, as always, was the mud. And as always in my dreams of after the world ends there were three boys with whom I felt an immediate companionship, kinship, connection, and why not. I’d been dreaming them for years. There was, as always, the violence, the inability to speak and all its frustration, or even when speaking to communicate. I was slapping and striking the prettiest boy as hard as I could, enraged by his looks, but as in all my dreams there was no force to my blows, or I could not feel them at least, though the marks appeared by magic on his face. And there were muddle conversations of great significance and no sense. And of course there was sex, but, as in all my dreams, I can only remember a few stray scanty details. I dreampt the most beautiful boy I’d ever struck or kissed pushed me down and fucked me, whispering in my ear “I know you, too. I’m you. I’m you.” I dreampt of things that are never going to happen. I dreampt of two dis-houred days with a boy I fell in love with because I would never see him again. The sex is always less important than you’d think. In dreams the sex is always secondary. In the desert I saw a new race of creatures evolve, with crystal skulls, the insides tattooed with incredible scenes to hide their brains from prying eyes. Boots and raincoats and cigarettes. A sleeping bag of heavy canvas and a tent too cold to sleep in. Strange drugs. People who wandered in and out, intersecting on their own dream missions. Sometimes I hear someone call my name, and grow confused; am I awake or asleep.