When I was three

I wanted to be a forest ranger like in the Smokey the Bear books. But that was never enough, I wanted to be a chef, I wanted to be a farmer, I wanted to ...

What animal would you like to be?

Black bear.

She stops, looks at the pictures on the wall. Where did that poster come from? Why were there naked people and old women and movie stars and movement all mixed up on it? She stares at the edges of the paper, her ears soaked in songs. How to adapt to brick walls and hard floors? Someone asked her how she lives like a tramp, like this, but she thinks it's luxury, heck there's a mini-fridge in the corner! You can't ask for much more than that. She daydreams in place of drinking, remembers how to go on midnight walks. Different dangers, maybe.

She walks to the stairs which go up. Up is just an idea some fool had. And we shall make fools of men. She feels as if she is wrapped tight, suffocated in her duvet, even though she's outside with the patting hands of the rain. People are like trees around her, even when they're all asleep. They say society is like a tree, politics in the trunk, arts in the leaves. She wouldn't know, because who knows the bigger picture when they're a dot in the corner, falling off the edges of the paper.

She thinks of the world as something to hide in, to avoid everything which is outside. To blind yourself by snuggling into it. She always loved the word 'snuggery'; always loved the idea of a room of pillows. When she was a child she bounced in a room of mattresses and they told her she was warm.

Nowadays there are ashes in her hair and she trails her fingers in the pools of people as if she can make a difference to lives through ripples. She leaves stains on them all, but she doesn't think they notice. She kisses to say that she is alive and lovable, although separate from those she kisses, kisses them because she recognises the loneliness in them, because they're hurt.