Figure 8

I have started sleeping like a Tyrannosaurus rex, my fists balled against me and my legs clenched. Apparently this is how trauma sleeps. But I am tired of trauma. I just want some release. Plus, I’m not just a dinosaur, I am also a mammal. This is colliding in a social fad known as perimenopause. If I install the app I will be able to track when my legs feel cold due to bad circulation, a sensation that competes with the constant damp sweat at my neck and my forehead and my upper lip. My legs are cold and my neck is wet. I am soaking through my muumuus, I am almost 50. I have never perspired like this. I used to think sweating was for other people, I was a snake. Snakes don’t sweat. I had to google whether snakes sweat, because reality is dead to me. The internet only makes it worse.

The other morning the dog’s legs collapsed. He lay in the hall. It was not the end, not quite. He was being overly dramatic, because now he is back to licking my toes. I hope he dies in his sleep. I hope he retains his disgusting habits in heaven.

The other day I saw Marilyn Monroe and Elvis being interviewed on Ed Sullivan. An interview that never happened, along with all the other fake images and histories that are draining the wai of the world. I know that a billionaire is playing tricks on me for no reason but his avarice because the other day I saw a Jack Russell being nice to budgies. That would never happen.

The weird thing about real life is that one day it is gone and you can never get it back unless you have nieces, nephews, grandchildren and cousins. I have a cousin who will never speak to me again.

I tell my son that the speed of sound is older than the speed of light and this is why music matters. This is why big koro’s thunder comes after the lightning, because he can’t keep up. My son concedes that I am correct.

He is a bull that keeps coming into my room to check the lioness sweating through her paws is alright. He touches the dog’s head. His arms keep saying more than words.