I know the wounded bird in my dream can’t be a good omen. And yeah, it’s bad enough that it was wounded—or rather, dead—but worse still that it wasn’t a conventional wound like a broken wing—no, no. Instead, I could see that its neck was snapped, hanging like a ragdoll’s limb outside of a sunroof, as we drove by the wreckage of some massive pile-up. Not any ordinary pile-up either, but the kind of dystopian one that can hopefully only exist in dreams. The “we” I am referring to is me, my mother and my sister. Mother is driving, Sister is in the backseat and I’m riding shotgun—and also sort of wishing I had one to blow my brains out with. This is because Mother just called me “stupid bitch,” and Sister chimed in vehemently to agree. 

Their shared disdain for me really stung—and it also enraged me. Who the fuck were they to call me a stupid bitch when they were the biggest philistines of all? I don’t think I’d ever seen either one of them open a book in my life. Nonetheless, they lobbed this moniker at me as we passed the bird—a goose-looking creature—with the snapped neck. And yet, the gruesome sight didn’t stop me from laying into both of them for having the audacity to insult me that way. I mean, really, they were supposed to be family, the closest thing to an obligatory 24/7 cheerleader that a human can have. But no, not in my case. Or at least that’s how my subconscious viewed it as it took me to dark places, apparently with Mother driving me to them. 

The vision of the blood and guts spewing from the neck of this bird was only the first in a series of horrific images on this “little” journey. There were more birds ahead, all of them additionally wounded (and on their way to imminent death) in unexpected ways that rarely had anything to do with their wings. As we got farther away from the car and bird atrocities, we approached some strange, “single-stall” stable that seemed to randomly pop up out of nowhere.

The stable contained a lone brown horse whose midsection was concealed by the door that kept it penned up inside. It was positioned in such a way so that I could see it “horizontally” as opposed to “head-on.” It turned its head ever so slightly in my direction to cast a glance at me. The kind of glance that could haunt you for a lifetime, for its expression was one of unbridled (no horse pun intended) terror. As though it were trying to warn me of something before I continued along. 

I had no time to fully consider its countenance of foreboding before Mother made a sharp left and we were, all at once, in an entirely new landscape. It was a brighter, less dystopian one, punctuated by lush greenery and a clear lake that looked so inviting in the sunlight that I could feel myself automatically opening the door to Mother’s moving vehicle and jumping right out. 

She didn’t bother to stop and see if I was alright, and I could hear her and Sister’s sadistic cackles being carried away on the wind as they sped to the next unpredictable destination. As though they had been waiting to be rid of me the entire time, which of course they were. That much was made clear when they called me a stupid bitch. Well, I didn’t find their company to be very intelligent either. And maybe I would have felt fine on my own, out there in the wilderness with that crystal-blue lake to take me in its arms were it not for the fact that, as I kept walking, I noticed that every time my foot came down on the cogon grass, I ended up stepping on a dead bird. No more wounded ones to encounter, just dead “feathered friends” that could no longer be friendly to anybody. 

As I kept trying to get closer to the lake, assuming it to be, for whatever reason, my sole option for sanctuary in this suddenly very macabre setting—this bird graveyard—I woke up and remembered I had gone to sleep at my parents’ house. I had just endured my first night of sleeping there for a one-week trip I scheduled to coincide with Thanksgiving. After all, it had been years since I conceded to going home for that “holiday,” one that I found to be the most embarrassing American celebration by far. Even more so than the Super Bowl. 

After I performed my bathroom rigmarole (brushing teeth, washing face, etc.) and put some clothes on, I went downstairs and tried to get through breakfast as “normally” as possible, making small talk with Mother, Sister and, now, Father (who had been suspiciously absent from the dream). But I remained tormented by the grisly bird imagery of my slumber. So much so that I decided to try and look up what it meant, hoping some “one size fits all” interpretation might soothe me. Among my “findings,” I came across a fairly standard interpretation on bettersleep.com that stated, “Encountering a wounded bird in your dream is likely a sign that you feel hurt, vulnerable or helpless.” Well, yeah. Obviously. Who doesn’t feel that way almost every second of every day? I went on to read about the dead bird meaning, and the explanation wasn’t much better. In truth, it was far more ominous: “A dead bird in your dream suggests a loss or an ending. You may need to let go of an unfulfilled hope or move on from a cherished relationship that is no longer good for you.” 

What other relationship could the birds be referring to but the one I had with my family? They were the ones in the dream. Save for Father…which meant what? That he was still “safe” to interact with? I couldn’t say for sure. And even though bettersleep.com tried to offer the additional consolation, “However, in some cases, dreaming of a dead bird can suggest that you’re headed for a new chapter of life. Dead birds can be linked with ideas of rebirth by the legend of the phoenix, a bird that dies in flames, only to be born again from the ashes,” I was not consoled. I knew there was no “new chapter.” That’s not what the birds were referring to at all. Unless the “new chapter” was with regard to me cutting out my family from my life. Telling them, once and for all, that I wouldn’t tolerate being treated like shit any longer. Like some emotional punching bag they could pummel and then set aside until I was “needed” again. For more punching.

That is, for so long, how it felt to be me in this family. And, as I’m realizing, how it will always feel. Because I’m not going to say or do anything to extricate myself from the “bond” that ties us eternally. I’m going to just keep sitting here, eating my breakfast, nodding along and pretending it’s all fine. That I’m not hurt. That I’m not still wounded from so many things that people are supposed to “just get over” once they’re adults and have “better things” to concern themselves with. 

I’m faintly aware that I’m no longer even chewing my cereal, just gnashing my teeth as I keep listening. Keep waiting for them to see me in any real way. It was at that moment that a black bird of some unidentifiable breed smacked right into the window, prompting Mother to cease her yammering (for once). Though she only allowed a few seconds of silence before she started to scream and insisted that Father do something to get rid of it. But what I heard, ultimately, was a communication from the dream, yet again, as it trickled into my waking life, to do something to get rid of my commitment to this family.