Untitled, #3

I had a dream that I don't want to talk about because it scares me so much. But I have to talk about it because it scares me so much. In my dream, I am outside and a man walks up to me. He is not someone that I know in real life but he is someone that instinctively in my dream I know that I know. He threatens me with a knife but I begin to run. He follows me, and I am almost inside an apartment (not the one I am in now) when he sticks his foot in the door and gets in too. So my apartment is not safe. And I am screaming and crying and he is wrestling against me. And everywhere that he touches my body is a slash, and bright red swells to the surface of my skin. My arms. My legs. My stomach. My neck. And I am thrashing. And I ask him why?! Why is he bothering with me? He has someone else. And he says that I am his for life and cannot belong to anyone else and it is better this way. And he keeps cutting me with every caress.

There is a moment of distraction (something crashes in the distance) and he looks and it is all I need to get away. So I run. Oh, I run. I get out of the apartment and my bare feet touch the gravel and the hot tar and I run. And suddenly I find myself in Ephraim, hiding in a bush near an old house that used to be on campus but has long-since been torn down. I sneak into a window and enter the home and I am suddenly SAFE. It feels like peace.

Up to this point, things make sense, but now, in my dream, I see Dustin Hoffman sitting in a recliner. I climb onto his lap and he rocks me to sleep.

I know what this dream means. Don't tell.