When I wake up

I go under the surface - I am no longer awaiting the pain. Instead my eyes fall heavy and in my mind an ocean is kissing me long and slow. I can hear the movement of water, of time passing, and things happening around me. But, I cannot feel - my hands rest by my limp body, the fingertips numb, non-existent. I can see images behind my closed eyes.

It is of a pale blue sky that stretches and stretches - it has no end and no beginning. Beneath the sky is a body of darker blue which sways and rocks - the sea which is vast and wide - it too has no end and no beginning. I am not scared of being alone in this watery world. The blasts of wind that pushes the current along pushes me with it. The scenery never changes. There is not a creature in sight, and I am not even sure if I am anything at all. I could be a particle in the air. Or I could be a cloud. I could be a human being, but then I could also be the sun. Perhaps I am the star that is making this world so blue and bright. Whatever I am, I am now deep under - and soon they will wake me and take me back to reality.

I will leave this corner of the universe and re-enter the world I belong in - where there are birds in the sky and land to walk on. There will be my mother and my dog, Katy. There will be the hospital smell which will bury itself deep inside my skin, and my heart will learn to love my new brain. There will be a thing called God, and a thing called science. There will be homemade pies and fresh, sweet honey. There will be love, and there will be bloodshed.

There will be no peace, no peace at all. In a nutshell, I will be home where all things are rotten. I want to stay under the surface forever - and hover between the sky and the deep blue sea. I want to wake up and be someone else, or something other than me, Juliet the girl with someone else's brain. I want to be somewhere and nowhere at once - in a place where now is now and will never be then. When I wake up, I want to be asleep, I want to click my fingers and disappear. I don't want to be there above the surface, knowing things and replacing someone else's memories with mine. No, I don't want that at all.

When I wake up, I want to disappear.