Britney

The night before my paternal grandmother returns from Venezuela after three months, I dream of everyone I have not seen in awhile, regardless of whether or not I miss them. She is not there, although she makes a sudden appearance in my waking mind later in the day. The dream, as all my dreams tend to be, is settled in warped familiarity, the geographical area surrounding my school rearranged and stretched and collapsed into something that I would take for a new terrain with the tunnel vision of my old dreams.

The morning after my paternal grandmother returns from Venezuela after three months, I am stained with bad luck. Wearing all black the way my cousin tells me not to, I crush my breakfast, run down the street with untied shoelaces that collect all the dampness of the concrete, rip my dress, and am not late to school but sit in class hoarse from all the running and wishing that my hindsight could bode well when it would be the most necessary. I am learning. But perhaps not quickly enough. ♦