Memory and Dreams

I remember lying next to you,
my arms around you, in bed, as you shared with me
the contents of your dreams. You seemed so
afraid to bare your soul, your hopes for us,
and the future we could share together.
The feelings you described did not push me away,
(how could they? They were so beautiful),
as I held on tight, hoping that my telling you
that I liked what you had seen in those dreams,
that I liked our future described that way,
that I wasn't scared, that it was beautiful,
would be enough for you to know that I
wanted, in the deep recesses of my heart,
to take that walk with you. To walk into
that room to find you there, standing before a
mirror, ready to take your hand and assure you
of as much a future as these bones and soul
could give you. That while I faced our future
with trepidation, you were something that I wanted
and a future I could wish for.

This is how I cope, now, with time, with space,
with pain, with memory, as I sit here alone,
pulling these memories out of my cup of coffee
like a pensieve, as Proust once pulled all of Combray
out of a cup of tea - and, like Proust, I imagine
the contents of my heart to be pulled out
at length, ad infinitum,
to fill volumes and volumes and boxes and boxes
of pages with these words - words swimming around
waiting to emerge, for the right line to string them
together and pull them free,
Struggling to find the right way to arrange themselves
onto the page as they dive, scrambling, maniacal, from my pen,
attempting time and time again to show my grief
and loss to me,
and time and time again
to remind me what it meant and means
to love someone, even in the darkest hour.

For now, your dreams and hopes
still resonate with me - I can't imagine
either that you can toss them aside so lightly.
And so I'll continue to pull words out of
my cup of coffee, in endless strings
knotted together like a magician's handkerchiefs,
an entire town of words, my own Combray,
and wait until the right words strike at the right line
and spill forward into the right incantation.

Love is, after all, the greatest and most powerful
incantation - one spell I was afraid to cast.
So, now, let me cast these lines, and pull out
greater ones in the hope that one day,
you will read these lines and know, and know,
that your spells worked on me, and these memories
and dreams surrounding me, like sirens you
sent me to sing me to sleep, or to my death,
still keep me company as I become the words
I write, and in becoming words,
I become the dreams and spells you cast,
the endless give and take, the push and pull
of the cleaving of the Universe,
and find no rest until the right words are spoken,
and once more set me free to walk in dreams
of love again.