On A Nightmare (The Camping Trip From Hell & The Heavens Above)

I am in danger and I know it because I am counting carnations.

I am thinking of all the colors a flower can be, of crossbreeds, and animal crossing

I am lying in my sleeping bag with a flashlight in one hand and a knife in the other.

I know I am in danger because the sun is setting and there are sixteen strange men shrieking around me

And they’re drunk to all hell and twice as high and stalking around the tent

I am texting my best friend with one bar and the crescendo of a snapping heartbeat (they keep on shining their lights thru! / lord, lay me down to sleep like my brother and my father please, they both sleep so gently)

Because I am thinking of carnations, I am thinking of mantras

I am whispering to myself without words, move fast, move accurately,

be quiet, be still, that’s it, you are asleep, as far as they are concerned you are dead, you are the pink and red carnations over a grave that doesn’t exist at this elevation,

I am danger because half of them are buck naked and coked out and high on MDMA and civilization is four miles away in the deep downhill dark

I am watching their flashlights, three feet away, angry, ‘they’re taking up like four fucking miles of camping space’

The word for what they are doing is tormenting

They are pressing their hands against the tent, they are surrounding us with the bulk of them, they are rummaging through our things and they are whispering faintly, so close to me, they see me sitting and they are waiting for me to fall asleep, they are messing with my damp clothes outside, and they are shining their flashlights inside, and they are slurring and shouting and screaming

I am in danger because I am watching dancing shadows and I am just a girl with a knife and a flashlight and shoes outside

And carnations come in white and pink and red and yellow and sometimes purple

I am counting because there’s fuck else to do and we’re in a lake basin and they’re yelling so i’m listening to their echoing

I am placing names to voices—Chaz, Joshua, T-Bone—I am counting yards between the campsites behind us and 9 feet away from us

Move fast, move accurately,

I feel the fear in my teeth

I am counting

I am counting footsteps and people and I am counting campsites and wisping flashes of light and counting my phone battery at 21% and as each guy in the tent to the left drifts asleep

When you’re in enough danger, your body buzzes, your body buzzes and you don’t realize it,

you’re hijacked by impulses—

Sibling and father, now aware,

We’ve got one chance, be quiet, no light, don’t use any light, we’re surrounded by all sides,

Put your shoes on, no—not the flip flops, grab your sleeping bag, put your clothes on, no, don’t take your backpack, grab the car keys,

I’m not tying my shoes fast enough and why are they wet and i am shaking with fear and rage

I am pushing my brother forwards, down towards the lake,

I am thinking of the ground and the pine needles and carnations as we walk so carefully so quickly away

And we stumble like deer over driftwood and fallen logs

And we are in the dark, crawling over the lake like refugees, hoping, praying, that there will be no tripping

Don’t slip, walk carefully, walk slowly

We are moving fast now, we are on the other side of the lake and we are darting through trees,

We are moving fast because we have to

I am ducking beneath and I am used to the dark because there’s no choice not to be

Climbing up to the rock on the far side of the lake, closest to the island sitting in the center, what should’ve been our campsite to be, a place to see everything,

We are whispering

From up here we will surely see them coming

My phone is at 18% and I am sending GPS coordinates to my best friend and telling them that if I don’t contact them by 4 am to

CALL 911

I am crouching low and hiding behind a tree because there can be no light, we cannot let them see, we cannot let them see where we might be,

No light, no light, say it over to yourself until you feel it

I am in danger and I am clutching onto the thought of carnations

I am standing watch while my brother and father are sleeping

I will see them coming,

I will see their lights bouncing

And I will hear them moving

God knows they understand fuck all about subtlety

You reach a point of such quiet,

where you aren’t breathing, your lungs are moving and there’s oxygen reaching, but it’s soft and insistent

like summer rain or anger

I am seething and it’s so quiet I’m listening to individual ripples in the water

I am staring at the sky and the faint cloudy bands of the milky way, because it is dark but I still can see their dying light this far away

And the stars are beautiful and everything is cold and awful

I am aligning the stars with the horizon line,

when that one dips an hour has passed

look that one’s gone and that means it’s 1 am

go back to sleep, now,

I know the rocks and the dirt hurt, brother,

both of you go back to bed

The stars are falling

And I am watching

I will watch until the morning, I promise you,

I won’t let anything

bad happen.