excerpt:

The dream

The slope is steep but I climb effortlessly. There is no path through the trees. I zigzag between them, the branches brushing my cheeks. The world is quiet except underfoot where soft layers of pine needles and moss crack and then give way. I can’t see where I’m going but I’m sure of the route. I sense that I’m near the top. I begin to rattle, the skin on my arms and legs tingling.

I stand at the top of the ridge. I pause, I breathe, awed by the blueness spread out below. Next, I tilt my body downhill, moving fast and then faster, pulling off my clothes as I run to the shore.

I’ve had this dream at least a dozen times. The hill encroaches on whatever else has been playing out in my dream world. A tiring cross-country road trip. A visit to a warped version of a house I lived in as a child. A walk under the hot sun along a busy highway without a good hat. Suddenly, I feel the hill in the distance – and I choose to go.

Alexis Wolf is the author of the long-running Ilse Content zine, which was anthologized as a book in 2012. She has an MA in Creative Non-Fiction and a PhD in English & Humanities. She lives in the UK, where she teaches and researches women’s literary history. This is her first chapbook.