...but then, I realized I don't exist

I keep dreaming I'm a man.

Whether it was the stairs, the brightness of the sky or how I expected the sun’s warmth to implode me, I knew I was in DR when I woke up. I regained consciousness on the landing in front of my front door on the second floor of my grandmother’s house, which is really the house my uncle, her brother, bought so she could live there—but this second story is really the house my father built on top of my grandmother’s house because the “mansion” they bought over in La Surza was always getting robbed and my mom’s pregnancy was too delicate for them to live alone so far.

I knew where I was. The plants were lining the side of the steps. It must have been after 2pm because the sun was not directly overhead and the light came from the direction towards Calle 7. Which I guess is west. I can’t believe it wasn’t hot, but I wasn’t. Only bodies can measure temperature in DR.

The door is always open. This is the surest way to get any air inside this second story.

I enter and it’s differently familiar. The house is green inside and outside. But the hues are different. If the men of the family are in my dream, they are mere secondary characters. The stars of my show are the women.

My mom points out the bars that used to line the small kitchen window which fed into the living room. They are green and golden and now take up so much space that they look like fancy prison bars. I meticulously scan them for memories. But even now those are long gone. I can remember my grandmother saying something to me about the changes she’s made to my home.

This second story is my home.

Because the second floor is still in the perimeter of the first floor house, technically, both stories belong to my uncle. But that second story was always mine. Every time my grandmother makes an alteration to the house my father designed I see her rewriting my story to not hurt her so much. She did the same thing to her first story house: the terrace in the back of the house, which was enclosed with green or white metal bars, she cemented and closed off completely, making it into a separate, private, room next to the kitchen where my cousin now sleeps. No more playing dominó on the long dinner table in the terrace, no more making albondigas in the meat grinder in the terrace, no more birthday parties or late night summer evenings in the terrace, no more terrace. My uncle, her son, died in his sleep in his room in the first story house. My grandmother moved upstairs. But my mom and I were gone, too. We were here, and there looked too much like when we were there so she changed that too.

I think I miss the bars and the small window that fed into the sala from the kitchen.

My little cousin comes to me next. But she’s taller than I remember seeing her. She’s as tall as she should be now, but when she was nine she was so little—how do I know she's grown if it’s been 3 years since I’ve seen her, before my eyes, in my arms?

I am spun in a whirlwind of colors and memories around the room and end up in a bathroom inside the living room with a frosted glass sliding door; this wouldn’t be my grandmother’s most bizarre addition to my house, but this does not exist there.

I am in the shower, body-less. I am a floating head watching the water pool and not drain. There are tubs in the shower, yellow and green, and red. They are taking up my space. I remove the drain strainer and begin pouring water directly into the hole—I want this water to leave and not be stagnant. But then, just as I expected, bugs crawl out of the drain. Just two. Beetle-like larvae, but they look fully-grown; golden brown, shiny exoskeletons with translucent skin, so I can see within them. They are faceless faces; like fleas, but without the ability to jump, only crawl. Like almost-balls of hard shells.

I panic. The quarter-sized creatures are going to crawl on me if I don’t get out of the shower, but I don’t have a towel. I call my little cousin over. She brings me a towel and helps me from my prison—I had forgotten how to slide the door. I call her thinking there’s no danger in her seeing me naked because we’re both girls. I only cover my torso with the towel.

Then, I recognize that I am a man. I have no breasts. But I also don’t see my own penis. I just know that it’s there, beneath the towel. Just hanging. I feel nothing because I know nothing of what this feels like. But I dream I am a man anyway. Remembering my member when it shows up most inconveniently. Had I flashed my little cousin by accident?

I am out of the shower. Towel still hiding me. And I whirl my head. In the corner of my eye, I catch the shiny form of a gold bug. It is clinging to my hair. I pull it off my hair and it is stuck to my right palm—because these bugs are also sticky. It chomps down on my right hand. The pain is pain. It clings like a bee who’s stinger must be pulled out. I pull. It relinquishes.

I wake up with a sore jaw.