maybe i'll shave my head

they say you dream every night. i believe that because i tend to recall several dreams from the previous evening's slumber. this doesn't happen every day, but enough. sometimes they're strange, but typically they're either sexual or just boring. normally, i don't have bad dreams. and when i do, they aren't exactly horrifying. more upsetting or bizarre or unsettling. not exactly grotesque or horrific.

i remember a few "bad dreams" from my childhood and maybe even into my teenage years. there were those few nights where i'd start out of my slumber with a jump. a few nights in a row, at the precise moment i was falling asleep, i felt as if i were falling. i still remember the sensation vividly, along with the pounding heartbeat and clenched fingers grasping my pillow for rescue.

the other including that typical lingering feeling that someone is hiding around the corner for you. i was in the restroom and my friends left me in there to get to the movie theater or whatever it was we were doing. i yelled for them desperately, knowing something was waiting for me in the alcove before the door. thinking a running start would save me, i lunged forward only to realize that i could barely move. a ghastly old woman emerged from around the bend and grabbed my arm tightly, her wispy hair and white clothing tickling me like a flame. when i awoke, my arm was sore as if it'd really happened.

last night, my memory of the dream is very brief. i don't know what i was doing or who i was with, or where i was exactly. i think i was on the street walking somewhere, and it was dark. it felt like there was something in my hair, so i reached for it nonchallantly. when i grabbed it, i thought it was a stray hair so i started to pull. then the thickness grew and as it was plucked from my scalp i knew it was something else. i remember laying it on a table somewhere and realizing that it was a maggot. and that's all i remember. this image and that distinct feeling of the alien object being removed from my head has lingered with me all day. i'm not quite sure how to make it go away. maybe i'll shave my head.