Dreams

Even when the dreams end sadly, I still go back to sleep, hoping just to be able to see you again.

I’ll find myself in a foreign place. Unfamiliar with my surroundings; it doesn’t occur to me yet that this is just my minds way of easing the vacancy you’ve left in my heart.

Suddenly, as if by some impossible miracle, you, of all people, will reveal yourself, from the next room, from a doorway, from a closet; my heart floods with butterflies realizing - it’s happened.

Somehow… someway, my unquestioning mind bestows me with this overwhelming sense of appreciation toward the cosmos, for allowing our paths to cross again; that we’ve, against all odds, managed to find the forgiveness in ourselves to do the impossible. To put aside all of our petty squabbling and bullshit, and embrace that ‘once in a lifetime’ pseudo-magnetic bond that was strong enough to keep us together in the best times, and forceful enough to tear our respective hulls to pieces, when we could no longer peaceably coexist.

It doesn’t occur to me how we managed to land ourselves here. Best not to ask any probing questions when you suddenly wake up in paradise; am I right? It doesn’t seem odd to me at all that, in this moment, I’ve no recollection of the recent past. No memory of how we reconnected. Just a tidal wave of gratitude and joy, that I find myself trying to mask, as not to seem like some kind of brain damaged lunatic.

Time is alway funny in dreams. It seems to pass us by in large swaths, almost instantaneously. While individual moments can stretch on for what seems like eternity. I’m just happy to be in your good graces again; to be in your presence. To hold your hand. To be the intended target of that sly, cheeky little grin of yours, just beneath those comically large lenses, that, despite their size, seem to frame your beautiful face perfectly.

Inevitably, as always, a sense of betrayal will ring in my psyche… like the reverberation of church bells; despite me never actually having heard them struck. Eventually, as if by clockwork, that fear will find its affirmation within your actions. Suddenly there is somebody else present; and just as suddenly, all of those gifts I’ve found myself appreciating in amazement without a second thought, belong to him.

With a callous cruelty, yet a haunting sense of joyous glee, you’ll say something akin to a scoop of lye in an open laceration. That cruel sense of betrayal summed up in a short sentence. One that, I’ll not repeat here, for the sake of saving myself from its sting, at least in my waking hours… and with that? Your silhouette is shrinking into the horizon, wrapped up in his arms; and all of that pain and memory come flooding back to me, quickly enough that I’ve no time to build my arc.

I’m washed away. In guilt. In hurt. In disappointment, for allowing myself to fantasize about such an impossibly unlikely bliss. For allowing myself to get caught up in some fantastical rumination. Crushed under the weight of the guilt of my own actions. Bleeding profusely by the wounds left from yours.

Suddenly, I awake back at home in my empty bed. Your side still vacant, as it has been since you’ve gone, all those years ago. Reality has come rushing back, like the Red Sea un-parting itself.

And all I can think to do, is to roll back over, and try to fall back asleep. Because at least there, and despite the pain, I get to see you again. If only for a little while.

-S.