A Dreamer

She hoards little bottles of 
perfumes
on the shelves of her kitchen,
each drowning in its own scent —
cinnamon, mint, tulip, basil, berry. 
Her sets of blue and white china
are stored in dusty 
brown cabinets with windows
you can barely see through. 
All the mirrors in her house
are cracked,
only held together
by tape. 
She keeps rows and rows of
Mason jars
in crates in her basement,
each containing a song
no one can hear. 
She only has photos of maps in her house—
places she wants to go,
not places she’s been,
not people she’s seen. 
She’s a dreamer
in that sense. 
Her keys to the house are held together
by a navy blue ribbon,
frayed and tattered. 
She wakes up every night
at 12 o’clock
to make herself a warm cup of
herbal tea. 
I know this because she
calls me
every night
at 12 o’clock
as she makes herself a warm up of
herbal tea. 
She collects bent nails,
keeps them in a little box
under a lamp in the living room. 
She listens to the music of the wind
at dawn, dusk, twilight, midnight. 
Stars are not balls of gas to her. 
She can slice the moon into 
shards of shaved ice
if she wants. 
She creates languages for fun,
she writes stories of her life
no one understands,
she reads books upside down
and she cracks her records in half
so they will fit inside her suitcase. 
She’s a dreamer
in that sense.