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.