What I Know About Dreaming

I had a dream that you led me up the stairs (or was I leading you?) in a house that I had never been in before, and as we turned the corner in the second floor hallway, sunlight spilled through the window onto my black chiffon dress and my legs that stood tall and almost bare beneath it.  I leaned my back against the window.  You stood before me.  Maybe we were laughing, but it was serious.  You put your hand on my hip, just as you had done that first night and it felt just as warm as it had felt then but my heart felt even better.  I heard your voice without hearing it.  You said, “I brought you hear to tell you --“

And I knew what you were going to say before you said it.  I knew what the kiss would feel like before I felt it.  I knew what I wanted before you said you wanted it too.  And I woke up before it happened.           

And I lay in bed, with my eyes still closed, trying to get back to the dream.           

You had told me once, when we were awake, but I still felt like I was dreaming, that you were having trouble being in the moment.  You’d already been in so many moments, now all you wanted was to get back to them, so you close your heart to the here and now, and the try to dream your way back to what used to be. 

We dream while we’re awake and we live while we’re dreaming.  It’s all real and it’s all false; it’s all about perception.  And now and then there are days that become nights and we drink and talk until we’re almost asleep – or almost awake – and we know with the striking clarity of dawn that the dream could come true.  We know that we could reach out our hands, lean into the kiss, say the words.  We know how it would feel before we feel it.  And we know that dreamers always wake, so we know better.