Wearying Dreams

Two wakings, this morning, both hard to bear - not for the waking, but for what came before...the dreaming.


The first, early, when I would have happily slept on, wrapped in Someone's arms, warm...feeling as though I fit there. Sweetness...but troubled, nonetheless, by dreams.


Dreams in which I sought...something. Wandered lost, alone, bereft, aching from the internal cold that poured from me in waves of frost and fog. I was looking for warmth, I think, though it be from a candle's flame, but all was gray, bleak...empty...and that light, that heat, was always just out of reach, hinted at on the horizon but never close enough to see, to touch, to believe real.


At some point The world changed, and I was surrounded by whispers that fell onto my skin like an acid mist, droplets burning chill through my skin, down to my core. It won't last. You have gone too far. Unwise. Unwanted. Used up. Tossed away. Fool.


I wanted to drown out the voices...the voice...my voice...but I could not. It echoed even as I woke and watched Someone prepare for his day, for the part he will spend away from me and this little room we've made into the greater part of our world for these few short, precious days we have together. Room. Cave. Den. Haven. At least, for me...insidious voice, telling me it's an interlude for Him...poking at the softest places in my heart, because she knows so well where and how to hurt me, and she is driven to do so whenever she can. She is cruel. I am cruel.


I watched him move about, smiled, drifted, watched more. When he lay beside me again, I touched his face, his hair, his arm, trying to teach his texture to my fingertips...loving, yes...but also, in part, trying to make them remember so when he's gone (the voice says he will be gone, he is ephemeral...insidious voice) I will still have him there...in the nerves and sinew of my own hands, that love touching him so softly, so tenderly. I watched him smile, eyes closed, face relaxed, looked and looked and could not get my fill, could not take him in enough to reach the place the dreams still roiled, burn them away and replace them with...something.


Once he was gone, I slept again, fitful, alone, lonely. I wrapped my arms around the pillow he's only just been using, breathed deep, scented him, dozed a little deeper. This time, I dreamed we made love...sweet...slow...tender...and woke before we finished, before he drew in his breath and stilled, lost in that collection of moments that are climax, face set in a rictus of bliss...


When I woke the second time, not long after I had slept, I again felt the emptiness...and wondered, aloud, what is wrong. Why would it make me sad, to dream such beauty? The voice, ever faithful, answered...because pleasure is fleeting, and you don't deserve a full measure...of yours or anyone else's. Evil voice...telling the truth just often enough to make it impossible to ignore...planting that small seed that grows so quickly into a forest of doubt, fear, loss, where I wander lost, alone, bereft, aching from the internal cold that pours from me in waves of frost and fog, without even the dream of a candle's small, dear flame to warm me...