Walking down the street.

A familiar feeling neighborhood.

‘Lots of trees.

Seeming like Fall.

He is walking in the opposite direction.

We make eye contact and stop: two stiff bodies.

The conversational exchange to follow asking if I can talk to him?

Rubbing the back of his neck as if in preparation for the hottest day at the beach, he replied “yeah.”

About-faced and emotional, my lungs pushed out: “i love you, like so much.”

He smiles, sighs, looks down.

An “i love you too” to utter.

Meanwhile, internally I could already feel defeated.

His flight-disk ways to ignite a darted response, “uh, i gotta go.”

“No, you do not. You know you do not have to say it back just because I said it.”

Stopped in his tracks, “I know I don’t.”

With every ounce of bravery and little projection in my voice, I wanted to confirm I was heard.

“I know what it is like to be without you and I hated it. I understand you fear a lot.

You like being gone all the time but I want to make it work. I want you to enjoy your time and your life and I also want to do it with you. i want to be with you until the end.”

With his back to me; the tensed, raised shoulders, lowered a little.

“It does not need to be broadcasted on social media or anything like that but I also do not want to feel like I am being hidden either.”

As his shoulders continue to lower back down, he was excited but nervous seeming.

With a slight tremble, he gulps down an “Are you sure?”

From there, the nightmare took a blacked out commercial break.

Everything was seemingly normal from there on.

When questioning his evasive, aloof, non-responsive behavior: “he could not be any other way because he knew he loved me and that it was not fair.”

A forceful separation because He “was left no other choice for the both of us.”

We conceded that everyone we had tried with after parting was not each other.

Everything felt that it was what it should be.

And then, my REM cycle to be disturbed.

Three mechanical blinks and an eye rub to get the day started.

My mind trying to complete the unfinished dream that left my body engulfed for the next 12 hours in schizophrenic self-denial.

Avoidance to the thought that the greater interpretation not being him who had not let go, but I.

Deep inside of, tapping into my

Subconscious Cognition

that..

It. Was. All. A. Dream.

-t