Dreaming

I see the woman from a distance; it is as if I am looking down the rabbit hole. She is cloaked in fog.

She smiles sadly at me; tears fall from her eyes onto my face like rain from clouds, they flower where they fall.

Now I am in my high school cafeteria, hearing the taut laughter of the catty mean girls.

I smell grease, see students walk by with personal pizzas.

I see my high school friends again--no, that can't be right--two are now dead, one of them I haven't spoken to since graduation, one lives in another country.

They are all there though and they smile and wave at me. 

I shake my head in disbelief, wake up in an apartment I don't recognize. The walls are dingy, there is rainbow mosquito netting on the windows. A fat man sleeps on a sagging couch, empty beer bottles surrounding him like an aura. 

Now I am in a forest. I feel my bare feet on soft green moss. Twinkling lights follow me, like Christmas. I look closer, and they are fairies like in the picture book I had as a child.

They lead me to what looks like a––wedding. I am the bride. I lean closer to see this man.

I wake up for real, sweating, in my own bed.