Dream I
We are underneath a treehouse.
He pulls the cord
to raise the platform on which we stand
and I splinter my hands
gripping cedar as we swing against gravity
stomach lurching in the heights.
He chortles
as I beg to be let down again.
Dream II
We are in bed,
yet I feel lonelier than if he were
a million miles away, or under another's sheets
and I grimace
as he tells me not to speak -
that my voice annoys him
even when my whispers, my caresses
are merely my love incarnate.
Dream III
We are in a bar without walls.
He smiles, dances on the bar top
backlit by a blue mirror and bottles
with a dark-haired wisp of a girl in white
and she isn't me.
No, I was unexpected.
I say hello and his smile disappears.
This observation spears my guts, as
he pretends not to hear.
I order a drink and pretend I never tried.
Dream IV
He leaps and gestures and goads,
poking fun and inspiring deepest belly laughs
and I should be blissful
but he flits from table to table
always passing mine.
Saving his jokes and witticisms
though I can think of a billion replies
better than everyone else's.
I turn to our mutual friend
who shrugs and lets it slide
saying this happens all the time.
Apparently, I am an audience
now considered too cheap
to buy.
I Wake...*
The television flickers.
His heads lolls onto my shoulder
and his longshank of a leg twitches.
I want to weep or *****, so
I move and
his arm tightens around me.
I want to shake him, when
his lips that are even softer, pinker than mine
uplift at the edge, and
part to whisper,
"Stay."
Each night I fear I have lost him forever
and each day I wake to find he loves me still.
What will it take to convince me in the dark
of what I, in the daylight, know by heart?
I've been plagued by these dreams - I wonder if the only way to banish them is to write about them and remove their power.
Thank you for reading.