‘Dreams should be…’

The thought drifts off like smoke, disappearing into the universe without a trace—without even a second glance back. What should they be, dreams? What? How can I even finish the sentence. Does anyone know?

I can never remember my own. They, too, drift off like smoke, the moment my hand reaches out to grasp them and bring them back. They cannot be tamed.

Much like me. Many have tried, but it is impossible. I am like too much water, spilling out of too small a cup. The world is too small. The constraints too tight. I am not like everyone.

Does this matter? I don’t think it does, but everyone tells me it does. I stare at the bare walls of the room I am forced to call my own, though it isn’t mine, not really. Whose was it before me?

I feel their pain, whoever it was. They were like me. They didn’t belong either, they were not “right”. The thought is comforting, somehow, because it means I am not actually alone.

These walls, they are my friend and yet my enemy. I know them, yet they are ugly and cold. They console me and yet they whisper behind my back.

Faces float in front of mine throughout the day, but I do not care to remember what lives they are attached to. They say things and I nod like I understand; I pretend I care.

Music, nothing I ever like, always playing because it is supposed to be calming. Trays of bland food to force down the throat. Cups of water to make the pills slide down the throat faster so that I am acceptable for a world that is too small for someone like me.

Is this what a dream should be?