At night 

I dream 

of rotting skulls.

Yours is

the one I

dare to hold.

She strums her ukulele from a perch near the door. She is waiting, waiting as she has been since precisely 1:15pm this afternoon. She watches with a hawklike air, the plucky plinking sound doing little to abate her intensity. She wishes she could simply conjure guests from thin air. And perhaps she can, because a crooked old man with a long white beard appears. It brushes the tips of his bare toes as he approaches the door, and her ukulele crashes to the floor unceremoniously. It lays there resenting her. 

"Hello!" she says, "I'm expecting many more, but you're the first to arrive for tea!"

"Mrs. Sanderson, I'm afraid you're mistaken." says the man through the glass.

"What?"

"You've undone your jacket in the back, I'll need to reattach it."

She looks down in surprise at her arms, which are covered by the straight jacket in question. Confused, she hugs herself tightly.

"Where am I?" she asks. The man pushes his glasses up on his nose. 

When did he grow glasses? 

"You know where you are, Susan." 

Who is Susan? She whirls around.

The imaginary ukulele laughs at her.

An empty room.

No tea party.

Nothing.

Damn it.

Seriously devoted to eating giant banana pancakes, researching homemade rabbit costumes, and thinking about the faces people make during sex. Seriously engaged in irreverent bathroom stall philosophy, in leaving drunk voicemails, and watching awkward flirting in the wild. Seriously invested in hanging by my fingers from this tumbling little planet as it zooms through the cosmos. Serious is as serious does, after all. 

Thoughts shape reality. Synaptic neurons forge the brain in real time. Perceptions are created and acted upon seamlessly. Imagination lies in between your thought and action - a source of profound new possibilities and a frequent visitor of ancient, ageless worlds. It is the strangest, best part of your mind.  

She is the source of your pulse found outside of your skin. She is the perfect eye of a hurricane with a maelstrom all around it. Internal hormonal warfare leaves you breathless, electric, hopeless, in turns. You lay awake, your heart pounding, your mind's eye manifesting Her - your brain has spent so long seeing Her and wanting Her that it has made you a handy backup hologram. Neat.