I’m trapped in an abandoned high school with a plow, a cactus, and a stack of shrinky dinks. There’s a ladder to the roof where I watch snow vanish into the ocean. I’m having dreams again for the first time in 1,278 days. In the dreams I am so Catholic, full of guilt that is not mine. Awake, my therapist asks if I think I’m responsible for every bad thing that’s ever happened to me. I tell her I do not like rhetorical questions. The abandoned high school’s theater leaks. A ghost sits under the burned out stage lights, haunting with the constant drip. Storms come through, the plow clears the streets. The cactus retreats to somewhere warmer. The shrinky dinks ask if I cry in therapy. For a long time I thought I was a waterproof roof. The snow on the roof melts, and bats fall through the ceiling with the deluge. In a dream, I climb a mountain and for once I don’t slip on the ice. The view from the top is even better than the roof. I am not afraid of heights in dreams, I’m afraid of something else. For a while, I had recurring dreams running up a mountain as a car chased me down. I always died. Woke up to my heart at its limit. My therapist circles back: you referred to         ? The roof leaks. I go to the bar at the edge of town and take shots of whisky and pickle juice until I am sick of pickles. Someone is singing karaoke, I sing with the crowd. Outside, the ghost paces on the porch, shivering with the smokers. I am outside on the porch, I am inside with the music. I’m both, neither, no where, trapped with the ghost of what didn’t kill me, somewhere in between.

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Image: “The Roof” from The Dollar Store Estate Sale Collection