Over the years, I've had a reoccurring dream that makes me startle awake in the middle of the night -
that makes my heart pound faster than the beat of a Shaman's drum.

In my dream, I am underwater.
I've never been a particularly good swimmer in life, but in my dream, I float effortlessly under dark waves. Everything is dark, perhaps it's nighttime above the surface.
Most of all, I am scared.

Wherever I turn my head, I see nothing but darkness. I look down and see an abyss. I look up and see the possibility of escaping, but my heavy body can't move.
I'm suspended in space - looking to my left and my right, extremely aware that something is coming and I cannot see it.

I don't know what it is but I am deeply afraid. I can't get away, can't swim to the surface, and cannot see anything. It's getting closer.
It's going to devour me whole.

And when I'm almost to the brink of insanity because of my fear, I suddenly realize that I can't breathe -
I've been in this godforsaken water for so long that my lungs have begun to strain from oxygen's absence.

What can I do?
I have nowhere to go, no way to breathe. The hidden danger is coming closer, possibly circling somewhere beneath me, and everything is getting darker. I'm tired. It's as if exhaustion is pulling me down further, whispering to me that it's okay if I want to fall asleep.

I want to fall asleep, I really do -
maybe it would be a better fate than the one I would be faced with if I were to stay awake and deal with the monster that's lurking in the darkness.
Just fall asleep, leave what's unimportant behind -
you'll finally have some peace and quiet, won't you?

Either way, I'm faced with an inevitable choice.
And in my dream, I choose to leave it behind -
I hesitantly open my mouth and begin to choke and sputter when water fills my lungs and burns, burns, burns me up to the brim.

I am burning, burning, burning from the inside out - tears would be streaming my face if the ocean hadn't decided to steal them away and tuck them into its pocket for safekeeping.

I guess this is death, but all I know is that I am grateful -
my eyes close against my own accord -
and I never have to see the terrifying thing that wanted me as its prey.

I feel saved -
except when I wake up and my pillow really is soaked with tears, and I still cannot breathe properly, and my heart feels as if it's burning up, and I am still surrounded by darkness.
Nobody wins - especially you.

And one day you'll wake up with a heavy weight pressed to your back -
with the sound of rain and someone else's breath keeping you company,
you'll blink away nonexistent tears from your eyes and wonder where you are.

You won't know now but you'll understand later -
this is where you are meant to be.
Meant to be is tucked safe and sound in the arms of your lover -
with rain washing away all of the bad things in the night.
Things that you won't remember when you wake up again in the morning.

But for now -
have the courage to keep sleeping alone -
because there is someone else out there who is fighting to stay strong, too.
Fighting to find their way back to you.

In the land of the dead, there is a little girl who remains bare from the inside out -
a little girl who knows nothing but a black rose that remains gripped in her tiny hand.

A black rose that cuts into her palm and spills blood on the bare ground -
drip, drip, drip - losing something that is already gone.
It's a flower that you can only find in the land of the dead, among spirits that know terrible things yet give black roses to little girls.

The little girl has found herself here - eternally lost and young for only a split second of time - but this can be home.
She has seen terrible things, too -
but there are worse things than finding yourself with a black rose.

There was no time for the heart.
The heart had to be buried somewhere safe and sound, somewhere dark and quiet and possibly unknown even to me...the heart needed to survive.

So it was put in the ground.
And now, it is banging on the door, clawing at its coffin, panicking and screaming to be let out.

It can't breathe. It can't breathe. It can't breathe.

I think there comes a time when -
you know you're exactly where you're meant to be -
but you also know you're needed somewhere else.

A time when you are pulled one way and then the other -
and you won't win. Nobody wins.
It's a time you can't choose -
it chooses you and you cannot do anything except follow it.

You can do nothing except get on your knees and hope it doesn't obliterate you. Please, please, please -
have mercy on me. Spare me.

Our sweet mother, taken away so soon -
gasping for breath as the heavy weight of perfection sat on her chest.
Even in death, she is perfect -
used to her full potential by many men seeking warmth but not love.

No, never love.

These men nestled inside her and made her full - full of life but not the kind that makes you love yourself when looking in the mirror.

The type of life they filled her up with was the kind that nearly killed her in the delivery room - crying out as she was ripped apart and her child was taken by strange hands. Hands of men.

These men ****** her and ****** her and ****** her until the last drop of life she had left disappeared from her eyes.
These men are the ones who look into her coffin and murmur, she was so beautiful.
So perfect.

She died knowing she was not beautiful, could never be beautiful. Beautiful was a word uttered from men's ***** mouths, a word that had been tainted unknowingly.

She died gasping for breath, needing to say those words before she left this world. Needing to say it, needing to say it, needing to say it...
I am not beautiful.

Here lies love,
our mother who will never be beautiful or perfect for as long as I am breathing in this world.
Here lies death,
our real mother who was always more than beautiful. More than perfect.

There's not a single word to describe what she really was. But never beautiful.
No, never perfect.

I've never told anyone that I missed them,
never told anyone that their absence keeps me up at night,
never had the privilege, or perhaps the curse, of experiencing my heart when it's submerged in love and longing.

I guess I've been dipping my toes in the water - too afraid to jump right in. I've never been careless like that.

Love is not a game, not a lake you jump into during the summer when the sun is high in the sky and you're sweating bullets.

Rather, love is that oasis you find after walking one eternal day in the desert of life - the clear water you stumble upon and drink and drink and drink until you're stumbling away with lightheadedness.

Love saves you -
gives you a reason to say I miss you,
I can't sleep when you're not here,
*take my heart with you if you really must leave me.