POEM | FREE VERSE | MEMORIES

Hypnosis

Trying to make sense of a childhood dream

Back when big wheels barked on sidewalks, braking at high speed, dreading the angular grating from skidding tread, I broke beer bottles in the street.

Static crackled after TV turned off at night, my charged fingers dusting dots in dead air of red, yellow, blue, and white.

Riding in the back seat of Dad’s black Plymouth Fury, I watched for glimpses of bodies ditched when passing woods, the forest greens blurring in streaks like time-lapse traffic.

Before push-button and sliding channel-changers, hot boxes for free premium cable, I chewed a snuffed-out Camel, painting my tongue gunmetal gray with each lick of the ashtray.

At age six I emulated Sandy in Grease, inhaled red-tipped candy cigarettes, puffed powder laced between the gum and wrapper with the strength of an over-stomped smoke bomb.

I remember when people smoked in grocery stores, the shopping cart wheels hung up on littered filters. I remember recurring nightmares — the wood-paneled station wagon

parking in the carport next to crates of empty brown glass, the stereo playing “American Pie” on 8-track, a song I grew to hate, signaling the time to hide,

but I don’t remember why. Hypnosis is supposed to help smokers quit. I haven’t tried it, burying in pocket watch swings the need for a child’s spike strip.

American writer

This poem is a mix of childhood memories and a recurring dream I used to have.

At the first house we lived in, my older cousins dared me to throw my dad’s empty beer bottles into the street. Of course, I did, because I never wanted to be called a chicken.

I ate one of my dad’s cigarettes but didn’t lick the ashtray. Everything else actually happened. You would think that would have deterred me from becoming a smoker later in life.

We moved from that house when I was four years old. Once at our new house, up until roughly age twelve, I started having a recurring dream of this station wagon pulling up to our first house with that song blaring. Now I favor the oldies and classic rock, but that song can fuck right off.

In my dream, I remember my mom telling me to hide. I would feel afraid, unsure if we were about to be kidnapped or worse by these men in the car. I would hide behind my bed and wake up crying before anything bad happened. My dad would come into my room asking me what was wrong, but I refused to share the details of my dream.

Then I started having a dream with the same car and song, only the car was driving in front of our new house without stopping.

In my late thirties, long after my parents divorced, I told my mom about this dream. She just scoffed and shook her head like I was crazy with no concern as to why her child was once tormented by this dream. Shortly after that we became estranged for unrelated reasons.

Then I told my dad about the dream. He vaguely remembered trying to console me after these dreams. He asked a lot of questions — where was my sister during the dream, where was he, was the car a yellow ’57 Chevy, etc. He thinks I saw something that I wasn’t supposed to see. So do I.

I’ve always been intrigued by hypnosis but haven’t seriously contemplated it. I would like to be able to clearly see the faces in my dream. I just connected the potential for revealing a disturbing truth with the broken beer bottles.

Logophobic, I accept your poetry challenge and raise you a challenge to write a poem about either a childhood memory or a dream.