Forgotten Dreams

The two rhinoceroses carried a house built from dreams nobody claimed. In one room a violin waited to be learned; in another, a voyage remained packed in a yellow suitcase. People followed the house, insisting their own dreams had never lived there. At sunset a small window called a woman by the childhood name she had stopped using.

She laughed too quickly. ‘Wrong person.’ The house grew heavier. Finally she climbed the steps and found a drawing she had made at nine: herself crossing the sea, not to escape, but to discover. She did not have to obey the old dream.

She only had to acknowledge its life. The house lightened at once. Forgotten dreams, the rhinoceroses knew, become burdens chiefly when forced to pretend they were never ours.