on the ship

I had these epic dreams...

I was on this huge ship that was moving through thick contaminated water. At the end I helped the men bring up the anchor, I had to squeeze though this terribly small space to get to the anchor room. Low on the floor, like a crack under a door, I pushed my body though and found myself in the red carpeted room. It was like the Queen Mary rooms, but larger, redder.  All the carpet smelled like boat.

 I was looking for Jenny all over the ship. I made a mermaid tail out of foam core, clear packing tape,  a blond wig. I was swimming in my tail through the water. I had a dance partner mermaid. She asked why I looked so much like a man. I was more of a merman. I caught myself in the mirror and I saw a stranger man face I had never worn before. I kept applying make up but I couldn't paint on the face I was used to seeing. 

The whole dream I was terribly sad. I knew she was on the ship. 

It was miles long. 

The last time I saw her we were in a room full of people rolling around on the crazy patterned hotel carpet, rocking with the enormous boat, bodies silently flailing. She didn't seem to see me, she looked like a stranger. It was a carpet party, at one point I asked the librarian DJ if she had any Ladytron. I felt like I was in fifth grade. The bodies all around moving like empty soda cans, I was drenched in loneliness. 

 I wondered about my tail. 

My mother, grandmother and aunt were all in one dark room, talking about my dad. He was going to jail and they all shook there heads knowingly. I kept looking at the alarm clock and trying to figure out the time, the day, where she was. I knew she was on the ship and I couldn't find her. My hair was all wet and I got off at the wrong stop. 

I looked the map and I was going south when the campsite was north. Along the beach I found washed up fabric and tried to make myself a home that would work. I knew she had shifted and I was lost along the beach with strangers. My mom was somewhere crying and I wondered about my sisters and what had happened to them, I knew about Jenny and her stranger face, and mine.