It is a Thursday when I tell my counselor that I do not remember most of my childhood up to my early teens; only bits and pieces against a backdrop of jumbled senses. He looks alarmed but tries to hide it, asks me what I do remember.

“Screaming,” I tell him, echoes of my mother’s shrill squall drifting through my head, “and my dad drinking.”

He tells me that he is sorry.

*

The house begins to fall apart and no one else seems to notice.

My little sister’s dog Skippy bites me and the blood that pours out is cold.

No matter how much I scrub, the stain won’t come out of our new leather couch.  
 

*

My little sister sends me a text during my serving shift.

mom is in the ER, it reads, it doesn’t look good

She doesn’t pick up the phone, no matter how many times I call.
 
*

There’s an elephant standing on my chest. Every time I let out any air, her weight prevents me from drawing in any more breath.
At the bottom when my lungs scream out for solace she steps to the side and I take greedy lungfuls of air.
When my chest is full once again, the elephant resumes her place atop it.

The cycle repeats, and she whispers that she’s sorry.
   

*
Her dog won’t stop jumping at me. My voice shaking, I tell him to go lay down in his bed by the TV but I choke on the words so he doesn’t understand. One of his nails catches on the cold skin

of her arm and my vision goes white.

I throw him into the other room and lock the door.

The next time he sees me, he licks my hands.  
 

*

It is the end of the world, a zombie apocalypse.

The people in this dream change every time, but not my mother. It is always her that pushes me out of the way, taking the bite in my stead.

She changes in front of my eyes, slowly, into something that I cannot name and does not wish to be saved.

My mother dies alone, off screen.