Blue skies dance in the mirror, gently nudging you forward as the day progresses in a slightly dull time scale. Green grass grows around your feet, nurturing your disposition and making your path easy to traverse. Soft winds lap at your hair and skin, making you smile as they whisper to you.
But you’re not here. The path that was easy to walk, comfortable, enjoyable. It was taken from me, and given to you. You, and only ever you.
I’ve dreamed, lord how I’ve dreamed. I’ve seen the world without you, and without me. I’ve seen the stars dance amongst an inky stillness as they slowly forgot our names. The virgin full moon birthed again into a still sky, ignorant of what it shone upon… and rightfully so.
My path carried sand and dust. The cracked pavement that rolls forward before me traces a map of the land that speaks of the figures that watch over us in the skies. I wandered a lonely nothingness, music covering my ears as I tried to dream those things I used to dream, and pull forth from the back of my mind the images I wished to see again.
I saw the city coming for me. At first as I turned to look over my shoulder, I saw an outline. But soon the horizon grew dark and bare. The light emitting from ourselves blotted out the night sky, and the figures who danced so carelessly in the stars.
Each day I’m running away further, but I’m never going anywhere.
Each day I’m shoving myself further down the line. I remember the voices, and the smells.
The old friends I see no more, and the dreams I carried for them. At the bedside of one, with promises I could never keep, and smiles I would never shed.
But they pale in comparison to you.
The city consumed me. The maw opened wide, and now I listen to this music, not for my own whimsy, but to blot out the noises of traffic jams and petty squabbles.
You walked in a moon kissed loam, still damp as the sun rose gently over it. You dreamed of ripe fruit and lazy afternoons by the creek we once shared. Now I dream of economics and the still nothingness that industry brings with it.
The path you stood on was gifted to you, with ease and splendor, so that a face like mine was easy to forget. I soon learned that my dreams were things I needed to fight for, kill for. The city consumed me, and with it, my dreams. The effort I exerted was washed away by pointless noise, complexity that only masked simplicity, and illnesses with no cure.
The path we walked was one in the same, so why is it that I was consumed, while you escaped? I dream of noise, and wonder where they went… those figures in the sky.
Their gaze was a reassuring one, and their tone was stern. I feel as though I’m deep within a cave, sharing my company with a great beast that is all too eager to feed on anything.
I would scream, but it wouldn’t bring you back. Those faces I took so much comfort in have left me here by the wayside, and I am always left dreaming. The eyes appear, as do the words, but the smiles and songs now blur into nothing.
You stood beside me, and the world you occupied was everything I ever wanted, the places and sights. Just beside me as time shifted effortless forwards and backwards, I could reach, but I would never find my target. I could shout, but never be heard.
I travel in a stream of time filled with egotistical prophets speaking with forked tongues and dual intentions. A subversive people pensive for the wrong reasons, and never looking behind them. It haunts my ears and eyes, like the fallen heroes we oft dream of slaughtering. Cast down before their creators.
You are there beside me, but I cannot see you.
As the insanity of the world claims me, you are still there, dreaming of friendly places, people. Smoke chokes the skies, and I am left wanting to see once more, the figures that used to dace above us. A snow capped haunted place, full of people that refuse to acknowledge one another.
Smiles transposed over buildings, but with slogans behind them.
We are sensitive to our rise, to our good byes, but in between, we are lost.
I am lost…
And you are not here. That face I dreamed of… I created it. Those places I envisioned, I dreamed of them. The hopes I carried, we only my own. I walked with them forever in time, transfixed on that which I was never a part of, dreaming of finding ways into places that never existed. Until we all find out where we are in this bleak place, until we each of us find a way back home. The sun is blotted out, the moon’s glow is unwavering and still, yet here we are ignorant of any of it.
The taxed minds seek refuge in that which they know not of, the foolish are all asleep, peacefully set in their ways. I would lie awake at night and think of you, seeking scenarios of my own doing. Lost amongst my thoughts, blind among my dreams, and I would give them all away to you.
Bound now, to this place, I sit in time and dream of you. Beside me in my thoughts, captivating in my dreams, until I pass from here, and into the sky, where I will dance once more with those that watched over me. Until I find that thing I wanted to call home, be it a dream or fiction or a place long lost. The ruins of my past, the fragments of this city, and each of them crowd the road.
I would shout… but I’m standing here amongst an empty road rolling out in front of me, covering the sand and dust. You are in a field that rests next to a creek that we used to call our own. The grass guides you, the sand welcomes me. The wind whispers to you, while it pushes me away. You’re not here, so to the things that enthralled my thoughts I go…
And nothing more.