'I have only had one dream that I remember', you told me. 'The cockatoo laid eggs and they hatched and there were dozens little snakes in the bird cage'
'I think that means something...' I replied recalling the myth about of a rooster laying an egg - a snake hatching out, cracking through the shell. 'It's archetypal - like an old story - a fable - you know?'
You did not know.
I did not know how someone could not dream. I have dreamed vividly my entire life; a source of night terrors, sleep paralysis and richly coloured fantasy worlds. A single bad nightmare would keep me fighting sleep for weeks when I was young. Or I would wake from a pleasant dream and close my eyes tight, begging sleep to take me back.
How could someone's brain not overflow like my own?
How could your nights be filled with nothing?
How did you turn your mind off?
'Well. Maybe you just don't remember them?' I offered. Mainly to placate myself. I felt sorry for you because you didn't dream.
I do not now.
I found it quite odd that I didn't dream of you when we were together. I would dream of school days, of being stuck in a never ending retail loop at my first job, of my pets. I would dream of family, of old friends, of places I had visited and places I had never been. I would dream of snakes, of monsters, and of planes falling from the sky in burning explosions. On many occasions I would wake, exhausted and breathless from the long internal battles. On a few occasions I would wake in the throes of panic. Every now and then I would wake up screaming.
But now you're a recurring motif, thrust into my nocturnal world every single night like a clunky poetic technique. It would be easy if they were dreams of the hurt, the pain, the anxiety, the sadness and the mutual unbelievable grief. If they were, I would wake relieved.
Instead, I dream of the pleasant times; of conversations where we righted the wrongs of the world, of your eyes that changed colour with the sky; blue, grey, overcast, of laughing and smiling and laying entwined together. On more than one occasion I wake, smiling and reaching for your prone form only to scrabble at nothing in a too big, too empty bed. I start to sleep on your side of the bed, hoping that it will help - but it doesn't.
Last week I awoke from another dream of you where you hugged me tight. It was the you of about eight years ago; your arms were muscular - not wasted, your face was full, you smelled of your deodorant and potting mix from work. There was dirt under your nails and ingrained into the lines on the palms of your hand. You kissed my forehead and I smiled up at you. I asked you outright if this was another dream and you smiled back before the lucidity woke me. Grinning into my pillow, I woke in the dark - I felt your weight at my back and your arms around me.
It wasn't a dream this time,
I thought to myself in the irrational hangover from sleep and I went to grab your arm to draw it tighter into me.
It was the cat, draped over me, he was snoring softly. The warm weight at my back was the dog curled under the covers.
So in spite of mutual pain, betrayal, distance and tears, you are under my skin whether I like it or not. You have become a broken off splinter - a vague, slightly painful and constant dull ache.
I ascribe power to my dreams and I don't know what it means that I can't escape you there. Long after I have been forgotten and replaced, you will wait for me in sleep in your idealised form and then I will wake up alone.
