a shadow of a dream

Under a different set of circumstances, had the apple fallen just that bit further from the tree, I am sure you and I would have explored those dark recesses of our minds where our lust for each other lurks. In a context where gravity and fate didn’t work against us as it does now, but instead creating an open doorway, a gateway into another life. I imagine the other ‘us’ (even saying the word sounds ludicrous) out there somewhere, in different guises, with a different job or friends, or perhaps not even looking like ourselves at all. 

   

     I reach for the gramophone lid and set the record down, the needle traversing the grooves, as the disc begins to spin round and round. The singer, female, holds the melody with tongue and lips and releases it onto my skin. I survey your apartment, currently in the throes of beautiful chaos, like you- your papers, books and trinkets obscuring the floor, the show of disorder you hide behind, but which I love you most for. As counterpoint to the music I can hear the strains of traffic outside, a dull noise like a faded painting, there, just. Luckily I am firmly here with you and I thank the gods that I don’t believe in, in case they may exist anyway. If they do, we shall enjoy the warm fire, beautiful red and gold, a dance of life not death, I think, laughing to myself. I turn to face you, sitting in your armchair with an unreadable expression on your face, your finger touching your upper lip. I never cease to feel so flawed when I look at you, so utterly broken apart, yet never blinking or running away. I need you to both destroy me and rebuild me. To forgive me for all I can never be. You reach out your hand to me, beckoning,“come to me” you say.

I thought I saw you when I was walking home, a drunkard in the street, staggering and once breaking into a run. That it was the other you, fallen into our life (too late or too soon, who can say). The timeline reordered, history in the wrong place. Come to me, I whispered to myself, knowing all the while that it was not my time to have you, that for me you were never to come.