(last night)

In my dream I had a cleaver. I used it on his thighs. He sent me away from him.

I felt terrible. I cried in the kitchen, knees and hands on the floor, red drops collecting on tile beneath me. I scrubbed at them with a towel. The woman told me not to worry, that I always had a home there.

This did not make me feel better.

I didn't have time to think about it. He was going to kill me.
I didn't accept this at first. I swung at him and ducked his arrow points (he shot short-range, from his seat on the basement couch), and even when the arrow grazed my neck I didn't think I'm going to die. That is when I started to realize that perhaps he was not kidding. If I hadn't moved he would have killed me, then, with a series of three arrowheads let loose straight toward my heart. Either he trusted I would move, or he wanted to kill me.

When the opening came, I didn't take it at first. We both pulled back, breathing heavy, and then I realized it was my shot. My chance to end it, really, and that was the appeal for me-- to stop the pounding in my chest. There wasn't any more thought than that. I realized it was my turn and I swung.

At first I wasn't sure if I'd actually done it; he just looked at me. Then the slice started to open across his thighs, then his eyes looked down, then he told me to leave the room.

I wanted to go back, after crying in the kitchen, to see if I could wrap myself 'round his bleeding thick thighs. Instead I woke up, curved my body around a pillow, thought of bright white towels stained red.