Pico Bumps Up

1984

Half of me, straight down the center line of my body, was covered in rubbery, white bumps.  I had to claw them off of my face and out of my hair.  The bumps got under my fingernails.  It was like being covered in whatever it is that's used to make those sparkly, cottage cheese ceilings you see in apartments build in 1960's Los Angeles.  The kind that are mint colored and boxy with names like Capri Arms, Shangrila, and Pico Manor.  It was a terrible dream.  Like being in a cocoon made of cheese.

2000

I was going up the elevator in the Westside Pavilion and I got grease on my pants from the escalator.  I bumped into a woman and she gave me this knowing look in slow motion. Then I swam home down Pico Boulevard.  It was a giant waterway with lanes for swimming not traffic.  I stood up near the car wash across from Rancho Park.  I wasn't wearing a bathing suit.  Should I turn back, I thought.  Or do I keep moving forward?

1997

An old man licked my face.  I could feel the bumps on his tongue and smell his breath.  Woke me up in a panic.

1978

I was a bride wearing cowboy boots, following a train track.  There were snakes at my feet.  I could see my face and I was a grown up.

1997

I was on the beach and out of the ocean, came a giant, succulent the size of a skyscraper.  It was a tongue, a tendril, a tail, a tentacle.  I'm not sure.  It came out of the ocean and bam, bam, bam - flopped back and forth, destroying everything it touched.  I wasn't scared.  Everything behind me was ruined as I walked away, and the sky was bright red.