The Dream
My right breast—
full and spraying milk.
But the left—
barren.
I was trying
desperately
to get it to flow.
—
On the bus—
a boy,
about twenty,
with severe learning
difficulties.
He was chewing
a plastic penis toy.
I was horrified.
His parents said
he had loads.
He loved them.
My partner spoke about the boy
and touched his face.
I chided him:
“He’s a human being.
You wouldn’t treat anyone else like that.
Talk to him—
not about him.”
The Meaning
breasts
Apparently, the right side of the body is the side that gives, nurtures, expresses, and releases.
I’m giving in abundance, maybe too much, without boundaries.
The left breast, the side of receiving, is dry — not producing.
There’s an imbalance: too much outflow, not enough return. I’m desperate to balance it out.
disabled boy
This is about what families normalise. How love and denial can become entangled. I’m disturbed—not by him, but by how easily his pain is dismissed as “preference.”
He’s not a curiosity.
He’s a person.
partner
I chastise him.
Even in the dream, I’m holding a boundary.
This is a human being — he deserves dignity, not pity or performative empathy.
Talk to him, not about him.
What Lingers…
What if over-giving is just grief in disguise, trying to fill what won’t flow back?
What if calling something love is just denial, when it refuses to witness what’s too difficult to hold?
Marginalia
In waking life, I’m on holiday, enjoying my family and our time together. I’m also in the middle of pursuing an NHS assessment for neurodiversity. This dream spits back everything I’ve been wrestling with—rendered absurd, to shock and confront. It revisits the feelings explored in Pedalling While They Take the Bus, Walking Away with the Door Still Open, and Sunsets and Nervous Men. In those dreams, I moved through an arc that ended with protecting my peace by walking away from holding space. Here, the fear returns—but as with the herb school arc which completed with Flawed but Trying, it doesn’t get easier. The work is entering a harder terrain.
