Third Rate

A lot of sex-related dreams. So many humiliations in my sleep, haunting me, waking me with tears.

An odd one: a man holding two large white boxes; behind him, a dark figure in the shape and with the gait of a lion, ferocious, vicious and I, with a choice: This box or that box. I had to choose which to open but I knew - in the darkness, there with that man and his two large white boxes standing between myself and this dark, savage, blood-thirsty...thing - that my choice did not matter. Whichever box I chose, this man would disappear, the box would not matter and I would be eaten alive.

This morning, again in tears, I awoke with the vivid memory of being subhuman. Of being third-rate, unimportant. Moments before awakening, I'd been in a dream, on a bus, perhaps a train. I had my laptop - an old Dell Inspiron. It was in my satchel but somehow, an ex - I don't know which one - was there with his new wife (girlfriend?) and the woman was sneering at me, leering, daring me to be jealous of the fact that she was "fucking my ex."

Together, they plotted with the person in charge of whatever commuter venue we were on and told her - a woman with auburn hair and a light blue dress suit - that I'd stolen their laptop and they wanted it back. The woman, condescending with her tightly wound french twist, occasionally turned and glared down at me as I tried desperately to hide one of my prized possessions. My laptop - dilapidated and out-dated as it may be - holds many secrets. Many photos. So much writing. Years of it - both personal and professional.

A stranger next to me who I cannot identify was seeing this exchange and heard what was happening. He was helping me to hide my laptop with it's taped space bar and missing "I" key.

"How does it feel to know I"m fucking your ex, bitch?"

The stranger next to me heard her vengeful, spiteful words, spoken through clenched teeth from a scowling, sneering face. The stranger knew what was happening.

My clothing was third-rate. My appearance third-rate. I was third-rate.

A third-rate citizen.

And that's why the blue-suited woman believed them over me.

I awoke crying because they were trying to take my laptop and my satchel. I was just beginning to quiz them - to ask them to describe the keyboard and the space bar and the I key. I know which keys work and which ones don't.

But I awoke as I struggled against them.

That's how I feel. Like a third-rate person.

A recent re-traumatization has brought on some horrific nightmares. Laughter at my nudity. Laughter and mocking of my body. Sexually grotesque nightmares.

I do not like being treated like a third-rate human being. It hurts and yet it's all I know. Everything else has always been an act. Beneath it all, I've always believed myself to be that third-rate person, mother, wife, human.