I had a dream that I was dancing with a lion that was eating the heart of someone I once knew.

It wasn’t gory, it was beautiful. And the lion wasn’t vicious; he was eerily calm and had a wise eye that would follow me protectively searching for my next move.

We were friends once, remember that?

The drive way to my old house went on for miles and we were so impatient while the moon rose.

I would tuck my head into my scarf and peek outside the window.

I’d let my hair get into tangles and my mascara would streak like war paint; I was conquering everything I needed to conquer. Freedom fell from my lips but I didn’t know how to taste it.

On Halloween, Heather read my tarot cards as we all lay sprawled out in the living room.

The chit-chat of my friends made it easy to think about what I wanted to know.

I whispered to Sam and while our truths were being read out loud, we’d look at each other with big opened eyes. We knew, but the others did not. I leaned on him with sleepiness in my head, and I listened and he tried not to laugh.

She looked at me with an odd glare as she moved her fingers across the cards

“Priscilla, you’re not just going to win. You’re going to conquer.”

There was thought to her words as she told me I was going to change the world in larger ways than just myself. She told me that I’ll get whatever it is I want if I’m able to figure out my true feelings from the impostors. I’ve been trying to find the true feelings for such a long time.

I wish they were color coded or alphabetized.

I wish I could categorize them chronologically or of importance.

I wish I could understand the fleeting from the permanent.

I’ve been so very fleeting lately.

I could feel the breath exiting my lungs and retracting back the cells in my body.

I am alive, I thought.

I am alive, and this is what it means to be alive.

She told me I am unsure about myself, that I wear a mask with the people I meet.

But you shouldn’t wear a mask, Silly Cilla.

Everyone loves you for how you really are.

But how am I, really?

He’s as close to home as he can be right now; the connection through the phone lines is back ringing inside my ears.

He texted me “I miss you too much.”

I asked “Too much or so much?”

“Does it matter? Both.”

We’re all floating now, like a heavy cloud or a spider web that was knocked off its branch.

I think someone came along and knocked me off my branch.

I hoped it would be easier, lighter, better.

But it’s just harder; in so many ways that I didn’t really prepare him for.

I’ve been so unprepared lately, like I am just waiting for the second hand to hit but I never stop to think before it does.

Sometimes I miss Wishing Well Way and the fishes that would swim next to my feet.

I miss the curve of the trees and running on the golf course at night with glow sticks.

I could charm anyone I met with just one twirl.

But have I told you recently? Oregon is my home.

I told Aaron.

I thanked him for bringing me here while we drove down 242^nd with the purple sky shimmering in my eyes.

There has to be more than this to everything; everyone we meet, we meet for some reason.

I hope I figure out why I met him soon.

Maybe I will place my dream catcher above my bed tonight.

I will look in the morning and expect to find nothing there – but life has been a surprise lately.

I have been surprising you all lately.

I was told I have changed, again.

Happier but almost unrecognizable.

Destructive but I am reconstructing.

The plane leaves in twenty-two days and I am anxious to see my family.

But more so, I am anxious for them to see me.

I left my phone on the kitchen counter in case it rings.

I think we should start talking more with our hearts and less with our mouths.

We’d get a lot more done and have a lot more to say.

And I am sorry I did not defend your heart with the lion but at the time…I thought he was doing you a favor.

I dreamed of daffodils sprouting up like waves crashing over my bed – uprooted from their seeds and planting ideas inside my head. I am a lot like these petals and these stems: we are beautiful but removed often; displaced as if we belong everywhere without ever knowing where we are.

I couldn’t catch my breath fast enough; the yellow blurred my eyes as if staring directly into a sun made for a god of fire and faith. There was a vulnerability to my red lips and a thousand eyes making their way onto my frame. I wanted to memorize the swirls inside these eyes, I wanted to memorize them and never see them again at the very same time. I knelt down before him in an attempt at self preservation but was hastily told to stand to my feet. The colors all blurred and nothing was recognizable except a feeling that crept down my spine – fingers walking down a ladder, a nursery rhyme about a spider. There was dirt in my words every time I tried to speak and when I tried to plead with this god of fire and faith, there was an electric current that went inside my veins – ensuring I never would plead again. I ran faster than if I had wings. I ran with my lungs seizing and my legs breaking under the weight of the world. I ran like lightening was chasing after me for stealing its thunder. I ran until I found myself at a dead end of a muscled frame. I ran into security without even knowing where I was. His scent smacked me in the face and I didn’t need to look up at his grinning smile: I knew I was home, I knew everything. Finally, I was the one with all the answers and no questions to ask.

I woke up with all of my lights on, flooding my room entirely with an eerily similar yellow hue.