Awake Place

Have you ever had a wonderful, beautiful, tragic, romantic, heart-rending dream before?

I have….for years.

There’s a lady there.

I don’t know how old I am in my dream but, if it’s in relation to her age, we should be late in our mid to late 20’s.

I wake up during intense moments of these dreams or losing the flow of it and try to get back to sleep like a man dying of hunger.

…..dying of love.

All I can recall is that she has fair, smooth skin…light hazel eyes, reddish brown or dark strawberry blonde hair pulled back in a low pony-tail, and a smile….

A smile that makes you cry…and never want to wake up from.

She evidently has a recurring role in my psyche somehow, because I have “known” her all my life.

I can’t remember for sure how many times we have met outside of this Awake place but, it’s been long enough between our reunions that I ‘almost’ forget about her.

Almost…but I never will.

Probably…because I’m in love with her or she’s from a former life or maybe…..just maybe, she’s real; but somewhere else.

It’s a “soul” rending type of love.

I don’t know her name.

I’ve never heard her speak.

But, this is what happened that night…

[IN MY DREAM STATE]

I am sitting on a couch talking to unknown people…hazy faces, muffled voices, disjointed conversations, subjects unknown.

You know what I mean….We’ve probably met there.

A door to the room I’m sitting in opens up and “my lady” walks in carrying groceries…

Oh my God! It’s her!

I recognized her immediately

………she’s back.

……thank you, God.

She’s so beautiful.

I was so shocked by seeing her after so long a separation that I was jolted awake.

No! No! Noo!!

I had to get back to sleep!

I knew that it could be years before I might see her again!

She was so close! She was just on the other side of the veil and I had to get back!

Our times together are so short….so incomplete.

Always tears….tears!

Why can’t we smile when we see each other…?

It’s always anxious moments, like trying not to drown or fall off a cliff.

………always running out of time.

It’s hard to fall back asleep when your heart is pounding louder than your cries of anguish and you are desperate.

But the Sandman knows love…..For he has loved another, long ago.

Back to sleep….thx Sandman……

She’s seen me just as I see her, and she drops the groceries and runs to the couch I am sitting on next to the fuzzy dream people.

She dropped some tomatoes on the floor….I “hate” tomatoes…..she knows I hate tomatoes….

Then….

That means, she wasn’t expecting me either.

She crashes down beside me wrapping her arms around my chest.

I grab her face in my hands, her beautiful hair spilling across my cheeks and face. I’m not letting go again, I’ve got to stare into her eyes and let her know that I am here, that I’m not leaving this time!

“I’m not leaving you again.” I breathe into her hair.

We don’t have much time together, I know it, she knows it….

Sandman knows it……

“Don’t Go” we both say at the same time, our voices choked with emotion…fear.

There’s no laughter between us.

There is only the desperation of cheated love and  all too frequent loss.

Her eyes are burning green…her nails cutting into my shoulders, her lips quiver as they press against my lips with the hunger of absence from air.

I try to pull her soul into my heart…quick!

I gotta tell her! I gotta let her know….!

I want to absorb her into me before I lose her again.

Laying her head down slowly, she looks at me with her painful eyes…

I hate to see her cry….

It’s too much….

It’s happening again…..

I wake up.

I scream at this Awake place “Noooo!”

I tear at the sheets and bed as if though trying to force them into a tumultuous headwind, steering it back to her…

You see….I could hear her screaming my name as I left her….again.

Thank you, Mr. Sandman…..

You’re such an asshole sometimes….

I’m looking at her now…her cheek on my chest and shoulder, her arm across my chest, her legs across my lap…

She says… (Tears in my eyes now in real-time) She say’s…”Where have you been? “

So soft, so tenderly “Where have you been for soo long?”

Her eyes want to know.

But I can’t tell her. I want to….

But, where have I been?

Where HAVE I been?

The Awake place is not where I want to be….

I want to be here….with my face shining back at me from her tears.

I can see my tears in hers……

I awaken.

….please God, not again.

I want to sleep….I wanna go back.

I am devastated to be back in this awake place…

“Thank God…she’s back.”………..yeah, I whisper

I try to cry myself to sleep.

I’m glad that “she’s” back, if even for that moment.

Seems like years, now.

I’m fighting to sleep, trying to find her again.

I couldn’t…

Damn you, Mr. Sandman….

I’ve left her there…in my…”our” dream…again.

When I left she had been sitting there beside me…clutching at me… knowing the cruel Awake place would be there ripping at us at any moment.

Be it despair or need…She is terrified that I might get off the couch and leave her again.

It’s not up to me though.

She knows that I’d rather die in her arms.

….I know it.

Right…then…forever.

Screw this Awake place!

…hold me tighter baby girl….Don’t let go.

(Crying now in real time, my hands are shaking)

What a bastard I must be…in this Awake place.

I understand a few things more clearly this day.

A real, love touched moment has occurred in my life.

Wanna know why?

Was the first time…the first blessed time that I ever heard her voice!

She sang to me…in a whisper.

Her breath was in my ear…warm and lightly brushing my cheek.

I can still feel our tears making love…becoming one tear.

She actually sang to me, and I can feel her fingers in my skin as surely as I can feel myself dying inside, watching as my dream slips thru her fingers like sand….

What a bastard I must be…in this awake place.

If heaven is where dreams come true…then I came one step closer to it that night.

I felt heaven there…in a dream…

On a dream couch, my dream lady holding me…crying into my shoulder…shaking…

Her loving me and me not knowing her…

I’ll be back soon Lady.

Don’t you fret, baby girl.

I’ll behave and commit no sin, I’ll eat all of my vegetables and pick up my dirty clothes, I’ll beg the Lord for forgiveness and beg him to let me see you again …

Maybe I can stay a little longer next time…and we can talk…on our dream couch…

Maybe…just maybe….

We can talk…and love one another….

Without tears….

………..and a little more time.

What do you say with your last breath in a dream?

…….nothing.

You always wake up.