All I wanted was to lie in your arms, to wrap my own arms around you and hold you. I yearned to sleep with you in the most innocent sense of the phrase—forty winks enfolded in each other, bound in breaths; and to wake up together, trussed in limbs and souls. But, as tangible as the most beautiful hallucination, I awaken alone each day, lost in thoughts of you.
I lacked courage—courage to leave and courage to stay. So instead, I waited, looking forward only to nocturnal delusions of fleeting insights of what could be. We existed hidden in the deepest chambers of my heart, safe from the twinge of truth. There, in the hollow cavity of my being, we lay, carrying out our lifetime together: breakfasts in your kitchen, smiles against my cheek, late night symposiums on existence. I began to lose sense of the world outside of my center as falling leaves in the snow, icy, stinging tips penetrated from this world into mine; blistering hints of actuality scorched the membrane of our realm and I knew I would die before I’d relinquish our castle in the sky.