Dreaming Woes

The dreams are back.

I don’t want to call them nightmares.

Maybe because, to me, nightmares have always been things of blood and darkness and never having enough air.

But I’m so tired of dreaming of grief.

I’ve always believed dreams are things your subconscious mind is trying to tell you. And I’ve always been pretty good at understanding them.

But these days, I have no idea what it is that a part of me is apparently trying to tell the rest of me. Or vice versa. I don’t know…

Or maybe I don’t want to know…

It just feels like I’m running out of time. And I’m just so tired of waking up sad.

Even the relief of knowing none of it was real has long faded. Leaving me with nothing but this overwhelming numbness.

Because the dream may fade, may never have been real. But the feelings stay.

They won’t go away.

And I’m just so tired of all this grief…

More dreams, apparently

I had a dream. You were in it. After months.

I was floating in an ocean. Birds flew past from the city to the deep. The city was on fire.

You stood at the shore, flames reaching for you. I begged you to walk into the water, so it could quench the fire. You sneered and said you’d never let yourself be tricked into getting close to me again.

And all the while you burned.

I swore I only wanted you to stop hurting. You showed me a pretty bird on your shoulder and said you didn’t hurt anymore.

But you were still catching fire.

What would it take, I asked you.

Drown, you said, your eyes dark but cold.

Ok, I whispered, though I wanted to live. Okay. For you, still, always, just please stop burning.

And I drowned. Screaming, though it didn’t hurt. But, because I had things to live for.

The last thing I saw was you smiling with your hair on fire. But the bird was already dead. And you didn’t even care.

You were just happy that you’d won. And i’d lost.

But I was happy too. Because I was tired, and it meant you would stop burning.

And suddenly, everything smelled like rain.