I had a dream last night.
A terror, a nightmare, vision, or just a dream. A dream about him, about me, about us, and about her- She is always a subcurrent in such dreams.
In my dream, we were standing face-to-face.
For the first time in 4 years, we were together. Even in my dreams we had to breakup, as if even my deepest fantasies understand how hopeless it always was.
You asked me why I didn’t call.
It was de-je-vu to another dream, from another time, another phantom’s memory. My dreams chapters of our story- alluding to one another.
Just like then, I reminded you why.
Because you asked me not to contact you. You asked me to set you free. You asked me to free myself from you. From the burden of our love.
Just like then, you asked why I listened.
Why I let myself let you go. Why I let you let me leave. Why I listened to you, when I knew that you and I were meant to be.
That’s when I knew it was a dream.
Through the haze of fantasy I fought. “This isn’t real!” I proclaimed. “This is a dream!” I told you, begging it to end. Begging myself to wake.
But you held me closer, your heart to my ear.
“It is real” you insisted, arms wrapped around my waist. “I’ll prove it to you.” You said, pulling out your phone with one hand.
Then the dream-you sent a text.
I saw my phone light up from the bed side table, as if I were seeing through the dream into reality. Asleep and awake, both at once.
“Proof” you smiled, assuredly.
Reluctantly I gave in. I gave in to the impossibility of the dream. I gave in to the hope, the fantasy; her final wish. After all, isn’t this what we really wanted?
Then I woke up.
My phone was blank. As I knew it would be. The conviction of my nightly visions already fading in the gray-cloud morning.
I felt the half-healed scars reopen.
The loss of you, the loss of her- the loneliness of grief re-filling a cavity I thought I had already filled with time and therapy.
She wasn’t in the dream, but she was there.
Unseen and unheard, but felt like an unspoken rule. Like the disembodied embodiment of our doomed romance.
Her last wishes made magic with her passing.
Her last words, well-wishes for our love, became a blessing and a curse on that night she disappeared. The night she died.
Today, March 28th, her words bound our souls.
When we all stilled believed in fairytale endings, and love, and destiny, and hope. Her last words to me became my burden to bare
When her last wishes for me, was you.
Bringing Mae Flowers 