You are the Dream

It happens sometimes I awaken so strangely

I do not remember where I am

bolting upright in sudden terror

confusion welling up within

the reassuring touch of the familiar warped by absence of memory

the orientation of the room

the weight of the bed clothes

the placement of windows and furniture

all seemingly out of place

intervening decades retreating to a great emotional distance

like life lived in a fairy dream.

An event remembered with complete detachment

revives with all its former power in the darkness

my former self rising from silken mists

the present fading from time and remembrance.

Why should deep and forgotten feeling

breech the phantom stillness in one moment and depart in the next?

I fear the reckoning

as a voice deep within

shouts with appalling fury

its once forgotten wounds carved in muscle and flesh

calcified within the marrow of the bone.

It does not return to mind easily

save a terrible magic stir it from its deep slumber

awakening when unlooked and unbidden

crying out of a numbing emotional void.

But drifting between wakefulness and sleep

I am too exhausted to remember further

the limbo of middle consciousness drawing me hypnotically downward

semi-consciousness descending with terrifying speed

its weight pressing down on my chest with such force

that my surroundings dematerialize

the loss of waking perception coinage for a passage instantly forgotten.

Witnessing a radically altered environment

I do not pause to consider my abrupt departure from my bed

or whisper to myself

this is only dream.

One moment I had quietly lain within clinging bedclothes

and the next you were with me as if never parted

your eyes so vivid and emerald

I stared in silent wonder at your youthful features.

You asked me –

Have you ever wondered if life is just a dream?

But I dared not answer

a thousand thoughts racing but left unspoken

your alabaster beauty a lasting, latent image

seared in the retina of memory.

I did not express my love

or hold your warm flesh entwined with mine.

In terrified silence I thought –

You are the dream.

But I did not speak

a wave of heat passing through my chest.

But I did not act

darkness sweeping like a storm across my eyes.

You were the one who broke the wall of silence

reaching gently outward

your hands pulling me into your tender embrace.

I felt the strong beating of your heart

your warm cheek pressed softly against mine

and we began to slowly rock

cradled in one another’s arms.

If I could

I would prolong this embrace to the grave.

You whispered – Remember me ....

Remember you?

I would give anything for one true memory

give anything to remember the lightest touch of your hand

or a lock of your hair brushing gently against my cheek.

Awakened by my longing

the first dull gleaming of morning creeps into the room

and with it the familiar paralyzing numbness.

The room brightening

I begin the retreat back into amnesia

the magic of memories reborn in the darkness quietly forgotten

the dreaming stranger disappearing like mists in the morning.

How can I believe in remembered emotion when it so suddenly departs?

As the last vestige of feeling for you slips back into the past

I wonder if I might defy time and begin anew

restoring the life and years the locusts have eaten

filling the blank spaces of my memories

with symbols and metaphors still haunting my dreams

unearthing plot and subtext

restoring clarity and color to the sepia tones of the past

infusing with emotion

events that long ago lost their power to move.