cazimi, or “in the heart of”.

I haven't dreamed about bridges since I was really young, 4 or 5 maybe. It was always the bridges my mother later told me were probably the ones in Tampa, but I don't actually remember that part. I think most of my childhood memories are dreams, actually. I do remember being in the car with my father, a weird, desperate man, one of many con artists that handled me during my early cognitive development. in the dreams it was always him and my older brother, and the bridge just ended in the middle of sunny blue green expanse, the water of the gulf coast. Sometimes he stopped the car in time, sometimes he didn't. Maybe that's why roller coaster have always inspired deep fear in me. what do you orient yourself around, anchor yourself to?

Last night, I am not sure who was driving the vehicle we were in, there was a handful of other bodies though. the bridge we were on looked more like the Brooklyn bridge, sturdy with high points that remind me of photos of Notre Dame, the cathedral, weathered by the elements, still standing as a testament to the power of faith. It was raining, I think, there must have been some reason for the obvious storm surge that had brought the water level to the edges of the tall bridge - maybe it was the video I watched of a large glacier breaking apart before I went to bed. We were unaware of the intensity of the surge, though I can't help but feel like it was an evacuation, like the ones I grew up with in Florida, from the hurricanes that batter the shore constantly. The rolling waves were suddenly towering stories higher than us, with a quiet, awesome malevolence. There was no choice but to keep driving and watch in horror as the walls of water crashed around us, all we could do was hope with a desperate fear that the rhythm of the waves would just miss us in our trajectory.

The last thing I remember before waking up was feeling the pull, to my high right, and the shape of the monster wave forming itself, and the deep internal stillness being held in my body, inside the vehicle, as I accepted the inevitable, as the driver stepped on the gas.

when I woke up, I was 29 years old.