The Blood & The Bones

I cannot have you.
But, I can dream of you.
And I can wake unwillingly. Painfully aware that the room holds no trace of you.The bed was never warm with your body heat and the barren valley between my shoulder blades did not miss the cadence of your heartbeat. Tightening my lids asking for a few more minutes of this bliss that lives only in our fantasies.

Much like every day before, they do not come, always refusing to arrive again after the sun pulls me to rise forced to move through hours of reality. Patiently waiting for our time again.
And on the road from wake to sleep there are so many things that I can do to make this bearable. I can tell myself that someday is not set in stone and pray for when you are no longer bound by promises you do not wish to keep. And then we won’t be sinning by giving in to what we can’t resist. I can make excuses for believing that desire is the demon and that trauma drove me to be a person who did things, immoral things, to cope with pain. I can wait for you when you never asked me to knowing you will not because there are things that can’t be changed.
I can hold space for you that you will never occupy believing in my heart that connections like this will not be denied.
I can pretend that all the things you do not say sit caught between your heart and throat and that you don’t say them to me because they might bring forth hope. Hope you cannot afford to give.
I can tell myself that I am not the only one who feels the pull and that even if that is true, I can let it go and move on with no remorse. I can lie and say that now is enough. That there is no need for more.
I can tell myself not to believe that dreams are not real and the words we share are not a bridge and that you would not cross it if even if they were. And yet still I can lay in this bed begging God for sleep where you are mine lying cradled in my limbs, safe, felt, heard, free.
And I can remind myself that when night comes and I search for you in the dark as slumber washes over me that this is where we live. Only here..Only in dreams. In dreams we lay in this bed and everything is as it should be. I don’t have to admit to anyone, especially to myself, that this is all it will ever be.

And I can do that for as long as I need.