I dream of a place where my heart still dwells there among spirits trapped in time. Every dream it’s the same place, with slightly different details. The people I know and grew to love each hidden away in their own little shop, always there to greet me with a smile when I stroll down the streets. I only see the ones I grew to love and cherish as true friends there, simply amazing how they are ever the same upon my return no matter how long it takes for me to make my way back into that dream. The dream, of course is better than the reality. In one small café every person I’ve ever loved sitting at a long banquet table, all smiling and laughing, sharing wine and great stories of their lives. Somehow this particular café doesn’t exist in the real town, but every time I visit the dream it becomes the meeting point of emotion. She is always seated at the far end of the table, her hair long and soft as it was in life. The light hits her face as if she is transparent yet the heavy glow of her long locks seem blinding in comparison to the others around the table. She never speaks. Seated at the table I find the greatest loves of my life, the FEW men that have ever touched my heart and burrowed a place in my soul, all with piercing blue eyes and flawless smiles. My heart flickers when I see them peering at me. One, seated next to a childhood version of myself appears to be still caring for me, chained at the wrist with the innocence lost so many years ago, in the days when your first date meant the world, when ‘what your mother thought’ didn’t matter and a curfew was the most annoying thing in the world. There he is, still beautiful inside and out a grown man now. Years of pain show in the glimmer of his baby blue eyes and lightly thinning blond hair. He is the man she always said he would be, my mother… funny how she loved him so. His hands, weathered yet still soft as they help the youthful version of myself piece back together a broken heart that lay bleeding on the plate before me. He glances back at me, and upon eye contact I feel every word he has to say, I remember just years ago making the drive just to see him for what seemed like five minutes. Two days went so fast in a city that smelled of trash, petro and sand. In him, in the one soul that still penetrates the very being of the ‘real’ me, I carry him closely. The pain he caused all those years ago before the choice of college even crossed my mind, the man I came to know again in life once I had realized who I really was and again the man I still hold so dear. He whispers something to me, that I cannot understand and exits the room with the young long haired blond that used to be me. Across from their empty seats is a man draped in darkness, I know him because of his eyes and the sound of his voice when he speaks. He is captivating, my eyes slam shut and my memory finds me in a cemetery. It is an autumn afternoon, the smell of freshly cut grass and decayed flowers linger in the air. We sit in silence, our fingers intertwined. His hands so soft and nearly feminine in comparison to mine, I found him magnificent. THIS moment, the one before the truth came out, the moment when everything was still reality and the thought that I found my soul mate resonated in the air is quickly whipped away with the harsh reality that lies never stay buried, they come out like the dead and scare the life right out of you. After that day he was never the same to me, but in this memory, he is still perfect and that is where he stays, locked up in the dark shadow to hide him from the world and remind myself that it was all just that, a lie.
It isn’t just the past love I had felt seated at this table, it is the future as well. A young girl with chocolate eyes and intelligence beyond her years sits with a meek smile to my right. When she looks up at me I feel the light again, the one that used to be over my right shoulder in reality is now seated within this small person at the table with all of these emotions. She, herself is an emotion… raw, innocent and unscathed by life this far. My overbearing urge to protect her grows stronger with every moment I take to examine her perfect features. She is amazing, she is painful, she is mine. The woman at the end with the bright light still silent as she watches my reaction from one person to another as if some sick episode of Christmas Past, her silence is daunting and the look in her eye says something, but what I cannot figure out.
