#dreamemory

In the special edition of our story, you live to see 32. My mama always liked you. We get together over subs and talk about the time we stood on the coast of Wrightsville Beach, contemplating our new position as exes. We were no longer together, but when I rested my head on your shoulder, you finally exhaled. We took in the sea. Your body language was saying, "Hope might breach the horizon if we wait and see." Neither of us can remember why it didn't work out back then. And that gives us an excuse to reintroduce ourselves, see if 10 years was enough time to become the right people for each other. I learned more about my body while I was away, and you learned more about your mind. Your mother always trusted me.

It's been a while, so the smoke travels down our legs slowly, and it feels like we are taking root. We share cold pineapple juice to stave off the humidity and the cottonmouth. Sometimes our fingers interlock like the tree roots, in the middle of the night. The clouds rid us of our names. We are down to our breath and our skin and a conversational silence, lit at the bud's end.

There's something about New Orleans that is so heartwarming. It's officially been a year since I visited for the first time. And while many of the details have been overwritten by time, I can't seem to forget the sensational pride I felt in the collective blackness down there. Still so hot in November. The accents and the colors felt like home away from home. I don't know what made it more apparent than any other place, but it was just different. I remember being so bewitched by every smile. And again, I don't know why. But then there was the anger, too. You go there and feel the culture around you, and you can understand how offensive it was the way Hurricane Katrina was handled, how our "leaders" did not care about what was being washed away. I felt that, too, mixed up with the pride and the warmth, the resentment of being abandoned. And it's really a shame. Because black people are magic, and the world is a much darker place without us in it. Nobody is prepared for a world without us. New Orleans taught me that.

Wish I could show you this green wonderland I dreamt about this morning. It has mostly faded from memory, but I do recall how full and round the trees were, how neat the grass seemed as it rolled on and on beyond my gaze. There were fountains too. I had planned to come back with my journal and stay a while. How do you go about returning to your dreamscapes?