The room feels empty with only my things littering the floor. The wind just beyond my thin walls reminds me of your voice: indecisive, reassuring. My eyes slowly draw closed, and I feel the warmth of your breath
I’ll meet you
My head sinks
Into the cold
pillow a comfortable
descent The walls split
and reveal deep blue drapes
over a vast landscape:
Verdancy sways
beneath Above the pastoral
waves an alder stands as you
clasp your hat under its limbs
your shifting soil island.
you spring forward
into the emerald depths.
The freshly dampened shore
Crawls under my nails
sun trickles through
The dancing ceiling and I watch
you rise and fall
With the wind-driven waves
Until only a wide-brimmed buoy breaches
The surface. I swim through
Summer’s pollen-brine body,
desperately push through stems
And blades, to reach your
Sinking figure.
Where your hat still bobs
In the tide, I thrust
my head down. Your name
muted on my lips, the whistling
overhead no longer
blows. Thousands
of leafy hands grope
at my limbs; in attempts
to bring me back
to the light are futile
as I tear my self
from their hold,
downward. Fatigue strikes
As pressure builds. The world
Fades, my vision dyes
Black, Walls form in the darkness.
I raise my hand to black the bombardment from the light rising over the buildings, and adjust to the day’s sun forcing its way through my window, into my room, onto my bed. My eyelids won’t lift completely. I force myself to plant my soles on the hardwood and stare at the sheets; I don’t entirely believe you won’t surface.
