Nightmare

I wake up in a sweat because I’ve had an awful dream, a function of my ridiculously cruel and indulgent brain. A nightmare in which some function or other brings us together again. He for all intents and purposes ignores me, a speck on the windshield of his newly-washed world. He, the center of the room and the man I always wanted, and always knew, god damnit, he was inside.

In my REM he flirts effortlessly with the women around him, commands the room, and treats me when I approach as if I hold no substance in his world. I ache and stifle an urge to grab him by the shoulders and shake until there’s recognition that I’m the woman he once thought was his One. I want to hide here, there, anywhere that has sufficient cover, so my humiliation doesn’t show. Again.

We always talked of being the same person. The same nap times, the chicken parmesan, the white wines, the ocean, the Dutch oils. How he wouldn’t hurt upon every instance of seeing me, in my dreams be caught dead in his tracks and almost unable to form words for a flocking harem, and in my days think a car-to-car exchange sufficient to come back into my world - even for a second - after treating me so coldly and so disrespectfully the months that we last knew each other, is unacceptable to me. Ironically, I’m the one ashamed of the absence of an apology or a farewell. It all doesn’t even register. I can’t allow it.

Because if I did, it would mean that years of this young life were wasted. That the pre-dawn talks and the plans and the laughter were all for naught and that he wasn’t really who he said he was. I refuse. I know myself. I trust myself. He was the man in core and intent closest to my father, the nearly-infallible one. I can’t comprehend that he’s gone, that he isn’t that person anymore, even if he’s not with me. He simply must be.

I wonder too when my mind will stop this search for answers, the diversion it allows itself each month since. When the finally intermittent disbelief and uncertainty will cease. Could you really not have me in your world and be your best self at the same time? It snowballs like this until I’m running downhill beside it, and I know if I don’t stop it soon the focus of this day will shift for good, the old friend of self doubt creeping in only somewhat uninvited. The swimmer, the truest friend, the man with the jokes. The You I knew was there. The man I encouraged. That’s all I ever wanted. All I really want in these moments upon waking is peace.