a fever dream i can't get off
on that summer in america & how it feels like to have your dream fall apart in reality
i’ve been having this recurring dream.
we’re riding down the highway in your blue honda civic and i can’t believe the scene before my eyes. the wide open roads lined sporadically with billboards, movie-esque row houses on gridiron streets, the widest bluest sky i’ve ever seen, adorned with endless telephone wires.
i turn to my left and there you were, smiling back at me, hand on the steering wheel.
am i dreaming still? i’m finally in the land of the free, and there you were, right next to me.
it only took me 24 hours of flying and another hour of interrogation by a bunch of officers, but it’s all good, because this is what i’ve always dreamed of, right?
to leave home in search of another, to run away with a lover in search of a happily ever after. we do it for love. we do it to feel alive. we do it just because we want to and we can.
i picked you over the boys back home because i’m a sucker for your dimpled smile and the fantasy that you’ve managed to sell me - of road trips on the open road, of long summer nights, of soulmates, music and a love filled with passion and adventures.
you sir, are quintessentially american.
you grew up in the suburbs, a small town in texas; spending most of your teenage years getting drunk with your friends in parking lots and house shows, driving into the open road, attending music gigs of all the bands that i love but could never see live, cumulating red cups at ragers and getting wasted, bike rides out to your high school, a small town where everybody knows everybody, where your childhood house comes complete with a swimming pool and a backyard — much like all the american films i grew up watching and spent my whole adolescence wishing i could experience.
a flag of the lone star state hangs proudly above your bed, a true american by heart, still so deeply connected to your roots. though you can’t imagine moving back home to texas, “it takes a village to raise a child” and you miss your mom. you talk fondly of texas still, and of virginia and pennsylvania, states you were able to easily move to just cause you want to.
me? i’m a voyeur, drifting from places to places, still unable to make any of those cities my home, hindered by complicated paperwork and red tapes. while your freshly minted dark blue passport lies untouched underneath the coffee table you’ve thrifted, collecting dust.
it’s now 102.6 degrees farenheit, and much like how we couldn’t escape the heatwave in summer, we too weren’t spared from the clashing of cultures, mine and yours.
you couldn’t empathise with me one bit when i say that this place scares me, that guns and getting harassed is not something that i’m used to nor do i wish for it to be my reality. i’m after all, in a huge foreign land that prides on freedom, gun, individualism; and coming from a small city ‘the little red dot’, where we spent most of our lives controlled by rules and fines and a collectivistic mindset, america is daunting and often very jarring.
i can be the most adventures and courageous person i know back home but here in america, i am uptight, shell-shocked, out of place, an alien, an anomaly, a minority. and that is coming from a girl who did fine travelling in europe on her own.
slowly, but surely, things started unravelling. i soon realise just how little we truly know each other, how you’d often rewrite the narrative of all the stories you’d tell, offering half truths and blatant lies. there was always this heaviness in the air, but you’d ignore it or perhaps, you just truly didn’t notice it.
you were, after all, taken aback when i first cried and revealed to you my true feelings.
“did you not want me here at all?”
“why would you think that?”
you swore that you do and that it has nothing to do with me and everything to do with you, that it’s getting worse and the darkness has its grip on you tighter than you’d anticipated and it’s not going away.
i would have done anything to make it better for you, but therein lies the issue. you wanted to just be left alone and i couldn’t. i needed you to let me in and you wouldn’t. your moods affected mine more than you would have liked, but i just can’t help it, you know that.
i’m having so much fun, guys, i really am. i’d swear, over and over again, trying to convince my friends when they’d call, trying to convince myself of it as well.
but most nights, i find myself feeling so alone while you sleep soundly in your room, and i’m left to come to terms with the reality of just how naive i’d been to think that i’d have been able to make a home out of this, to make a home out of you, to make a home with you.
but while the lows are so low, the highs are so fucking high, and it almost makes the pain seems worth it. we’re so miserable yet so so happy. aren’t you happy? god, i’m so happy, you say, glistening, your nose powdered white.
isn’t this the dream?
with your nose stuffed and your head in the clouds, you spill and spill and spill, letting me into your world and every time you do, i fall hard, harder than the impending comedown. the next day, we’re half-baked and lifeless, but i don’t mind it, as long as you’re next to me, holding me close.
surely, i can imagine a life like this with you? surely, this is everything i’ve wanted, is it not? surely, it doesn’t get better than this, does it?
in my dream, we drive miles and miles in your car, essentially going wherever we want, doing whatever we want and being whoever we want. i can’t believe you’re really here next to me, life’s so unreal, you’d say, flashing a warm smile as you kiss my hand and promise me of a love that would inspire the next big indie romance movie.
in my dream, we’re in love, and that was more than enough.
In light of my pathetic crush
I give up my composure
It’s falling by the wayside when you’re around
Hallucinate your face when I’m faced with a crowd
I need you when my heart rate races and pounds
I wish that I was
Somewhere I was
Safe and sound
Just let me know when it’s showtime
And I’ll be over in no time
Just let me know when it’s go time
And I’ll be over in no time
In light of your magnetic touch
I’m so stuck
Just my luck
It’s falling by the wayside when you’re around
I’m whispering your name like I’m taking a vow
I need you when my heart rate races and pounds
I wish that I was
Somewhere I was
Safe and sound
Just let me know when it’s showtime
And I’ll be over in no time
Just let me know when it’s go time
And I’ll be over in no time
On the drive over I think about you
I think about lovers and the things that they do
On the drive over I dream about you
Will the dream come true? Will the dream come true?