DREAM OF SNOW

Words by Jenny Jung

A dream of snow - I am winded by its striking bareness.

How long had it been since I last felt snow on my face, beneath my feet? I savoured the biting cold - it is a privilege to feel pain.

Last night I followed my wretched thoughts into my head and I let myself drift within a dream. I opened the door to a blank world, light searing my eyes. Was it an untouched utopia, pure as an infant, or a world left neglected and forgotten, snow piled on the trees as if catching dust - a new beginning, or a reminder of a gutting emptiness within? A light which reveals can also blind.

I thought I was alone until I heard myself speak -

“Look, snow!”

Have you been here all this time? Silently, a gust of fine snow laps at my feet.

I awoke to a painful sameness. Yet somewhere within me I felt an uncertainty looming, knotting at the stomach - Where will you take me? Have I been here all along? My stomach lurched at the familiar strangeness of my own flesh.

Faintly, I spoke your name into the still air.

I found the answer in my heart.