I had a dream once.

Green, of the darkest shade, a pitch-black color added like fraying jeans that I didn't know I could wear, adorned with golden crowns, scattered along isles of fabric worn by women in short wigs and long-sleeve turtle necks. I clutched onto the intangible black fabric of my mother skirt, it reached past her ankles.

I don't know what I said, because suddenly, the blurry smile of her pink lips was gone and she left me stranded. I did not understand, small hands reaching into the blank space where my mother once was. Then it was too loud, shouting and shouting, like my mother and father when I stay in my room, holding onto my younger (my not yet middle sister) sibling as if she were a lifeline. I do the same, too far into the future, curling into a corner, suffocating on my own breath.

But this is before, and this isn't real. Green; but it's dripping to black. Pale limbs falling and slipping. They step on pointy-toed shoes. It gets louder,

shouting

shouting

shouting―shut up.

But I don't know those words yet.

I wake up screaming into my hands. Hoping that my mother does not wake up to yell at my father, and hoping that the woman in pointy-toed shoes never shouts at me again.

I had a dream once―and never again. All that greets me behind the lids of my eye are inky black and dreamless slumbers.