A real writer

Sometimes I feel as though I am not a real writer.I don’t smoke. I don’t wake up early but I don’t sleepall day either. I find myself increasingly interestedin dumb luck. Chance: I’ve found two dimes in as manydays. Does this mean I’ve found twenty lucky pennies?I want you to participate. You the reader. You,the probabilistic god of my dreams. I’ve been havingstrange dreams lately. I don’t remember them butthey leave impressions. A bare foot. A tunnelof hair from her face to mine. A boat strandedin a living-room. Something warm. Something like the sunthrough my eyelids. A hand, with all its dead symbology.My teeth have fallen out. No, you pulled them outwith your hands, threw them over your left shoulderlike salt, to wish away bad luck. I have somethingto tell you: bad luck follows like a dog. It lets youget ahead for a few days, a week, a year. You’ll see,it’ll bite your sleeping face when you’re not looking.I’ve been dreaming about the future, I know. In my dreamI am not a writer, I live in a place with rain. Youare sunning yourself as you read this, on a beach ormaybe a desert. Let me move in with you. I can cookor clean or take care of your dog while you’re out.I’ll never have to write again. I’ll watch television.Do I want to become a writer? Tell me. Should I smoke?I can sleep all day in your attic if you want, becomeyour god, lose my own, settle to the bottom of the bedlike a boat in a river, dream about nothing but furniture.