the forgotten door

That dream where there’s a door in your home that you’ve somehow never noticed, but you’re awake, or dreaming you’re awake– no, awake and realizing that the reason you don’t remember the door is because you’re not supposed to remember the door.

There’s a sense of having done something irreversible, even before your trembling hand alights on the doorknob, even before you open the door and find another hand on the opposite doorknob, someone else holding the knob from the other side, tugged off balance as you pull. Someone who looks exactly like you.

Now you’ve done it, you say. The other you. I was holding it. All you had to do was forget.