In an Evanescing Dream

I miss you.

Do you remember, that night in June when we lay in the backyard, staring up into the midnight blue heavens. You kissed me and said that I tasted of moonlight, and I told you that I could feel the starlight in your hair.

We were silly then, and innocent, and we probably knew it, but in that moment it didn’t matter.

You came up close and asked me softly, “Can you hear? Can you hear the stars? They’re whispering across the sky…”

I smiled because it was exactly the kind of fancifully illogical thing that you would say. I have never stopped marveling at the fact that after that man tortured all the life out of you, you had maintained, in rare and beautiful instances, a childlike ability to see magic. A gift I don’t think I’ve ever possessed.

When you lived with me on this side of the barrier, I used to say that I couldn’t imagine a world without you.

And tonight, after one year of wandering lost without you to breathe life into my existence, I still can’t. I didn’t cry at your memorial service because I just couldn’t believe. I’ve always had trouble believing, but on that day I couldn’t believe that you were really gone.

Eternity is something difficult for me to comprehend. How it is, that we have only one life that we'll never be allowed to relive, even if we make a mess of it. How it can be that some deeds can never be undone, can never be reversed. How it is reality that I will never, never, see you again.

I’m shivering, but it’s warm out here in the grassy spot where we lay. But the place on either side of me is empty. There are tears in my eyes now, but they’ve been there before so I know what to do. Just wipe them away and try to swallow, even though there’s a lump in my throat that I can’t get past.

I fall asleep a silent hour later. A deep sleep in which your face comes to me again and I feel happiness, for the first time in twelve months.

But the neighbour children make a racket trying to leave for school, and before I can touch you, you are gone, back into my dreams.