burned

I had a dream a few weeks ago that my apartment burned down. I lost everything, despite my attempts to run back into the building. Afterward, as I stood in my ball gown (I don't know why I was in formal wear) next to Kevin, looking at the ruins of my building, I felt a hollow place inside me. I did not mind the loss of my clothes, long since reduced to ash. I mourned my books, and I felt real grief for the loss of my USB device, complete with all of my writing. It was for this last thing that I had been willing to brave the flames. I wept over that loss. Yet, that was not the worst pain of the night. The hardest part was discovering that I owned nothing more than the clothes on my back, a brown hoodie in the mailbox, and the furniture that I had in my mom's storage. I felt so small, knowing that I had nothing to offer to anybody. I don't remember telling Kevin about my furniture, but I remember him telling me that he didn't like it and he didn't want it. The only thing that I had to give him and he didn't want it! I felt crushed, devastated. I knew then that I couldn't marry him because I had nothing to offer. I took off his suit coat, which he had gallantly lent me, and stumbled to my mailbox, where I retrieved my fleece hoodie. I think the dream ended very Incredible Hulk-esque, with me walking off alone, but without the theme music. I kept crying all day as images bombarded my waking mind. This nightmare, though less violent than many, pierced all of my insecurities. The fire in the dream just made more apparent that which is. I fear that someday others will see what I saw in the flames there: that I have nothing to give in return for all that is given to me.