"Even as we live our lives apart, it’s comforting to know you’re only a dream away…"
How did we get this far. It’s been years now since I thought about him, let alone dream of him. It’s been a heavy time. I lost and learned, very happy to be back in Antwerp, but I’m exhausted. When I was fourteen I was intrigued by vivid lucid dreaming. I really wanted to be able to do this: lots of breathing exercises, special teas and failed tries later, I finally managed to influence my dreams. This time I didn’t have to do anything, it just happened and those are the most beautiful after all.
I know it’s hard to understand cause he preferred dangerous freedom over peaceful slavery and I’m a free spirit, impossible to be tamed. I always thought people with that much spirit would frighten the hell out of him. Maybe I shouldn’t reminisce this much, maybe memories should be left the way they are. Maybe I should never have gone to that dark spot in my mind, because you can’t miss what you never had in the first place, but I would never have been able to forgive myself if I choose never over a moment with him.
It had been so long since my lucid dreaming experience, I didn’t know what to expect when suddenly the back door of my mind opened. I not only lost my train of thought, I lost all coordination. Why didn't I prepare myself for this possibility? My chaotic mind wailed. How could I prepare myself? Prepare myself for a man who'd left me utterly boneless every time I saw him on television when I was just a teenager. A man who, now at fifty-four, affected me twice what he had in my troubled teen years. Ten times that!
Our gazes met and locked, sweeping me out of reality on a tidal wave of emotion, like always. Why had nothing changed? He'd been gone from my mind for so long, any reaction to him should have been mild. I'd been all over the world, I'd met and dated a lot of other men. I’d somehow convinced myself he was a brief part of my reckless youth...a part that had no ground in reality. Certainly not in my present or future.
God, he was sexy. Dark, dangerous, that sense of the untamed just barely suppressed below the surface.... He’s the kind of wild that leaves you aching to go just a little further, no matter what awaits in the dark. His face was more mature, more shuttered than ever before, and impossibly handsome. He had dark eyes that seemed to hold all the mysteries in the universe, a long nose that flared slightly when he was mad, frustrated. Or aroused. The features of his face seemed to be carved from stone. I would capture every firefly on this earth and light up his darkened heart just to see him smile again. At one time, I'd known every line, each texture. I'd actually believed I'd known the man... the inner man who remained an enigma even to his closest friends.
I just couldn’t stand the tension between us, but when he started to walk away, I didn’t want it to end that way and whispered “Stay with me...” He stopped and looked at me. “I'm still here because of you. You're my priority.” Hearing this put a smile on my face. In that moment I would've traded all my tomorrows for one single yesterday with him.
He was the most beautiful creature I have ever seen and it's not about his face, but the life force I can see in him. It's the smile and the pure promise of everything he has to offer. Like he's saying, 'Here I am world, are you ready for so much passion and beauty and strength and every other word that should be in the dictionary under the word life?' “What do you think would happen if we kissed right here, right now?" he asked, digging his hands into the pockets of his pants, grinning right back at me. "I think it would cause a riot." "Well, you know me," he said, lowering his head towards me. "Causing a riot is what I do best." It was the gentlest kiss I ever shared with someone, but he seemed confused and went to his room. Of course I followed him... “Shhhh,” he said. “I’m sleeping.” Just like that. From a hundred miles an hour to fast asleep in a nanosecond. While he slept I kept watch over him - a smooth shoulder, the little pool of his clavicle, his neck, his extraordinary face, his abundance of scars. Oh how I hate scars, though I would kiss the ones that bruised his skin ‘til the pain is gone. If he would only tell me which part of himself he hates the most, so I would know exactly where to plant my lips every time I see him. I wanted so badly to lie down next to him, to wrap my arms around him and sleep. Not fuck, like in those movies. Not even have sex. Just sleep together, in the most innocent sense of the phrase. But I lacked the courage and this was just a dream and I was gawky and he was gorgeous and I was hopelessly boring and he was endlessly fascinating. So I woke up and there I was in my best friend’s college apartment, thinking that if people were rain, I was drizzle and he was a hurricane.
I had to get out, I just had to, otherwise I’d give in to breathing in the snowflakes. So at 6 in the morning, in the freezing cold I go down to the river and just run, run, run till my lungs are on fire and my heart is about to explode. I want it to hurt to feel I’m alive, to close the hole this year has left in my heart. I know the version of him I hold in my head isn’t real and I’m in love with the ghost of his hand in mine. It was wonderful, but I wish I saw him more than just in my dreams. I don’t want to believe that’s the only world where he can exist with me.