Forever January

What is this languor that has settled over my heart? This rocking, hushing quiet that pervades my being? In my waking moments I am taken back to the days when the sun didn’t set, when the fires burned by the lake throughout the nightless night. I remember the scent of the tar, the susurrous of the wind through the birch leaves. The birds didn’t sleep — and neither did we. Hand in hand we loped down the hill to the water’s edge to dip our toes into the cool depths.

And when I dream — o! do I dream. No matter how hard I try, some memories simply never fade or die with time. Such are the memories I have of you, of us, sharing our last happy moments together during the time of the midnight sun, in the land I once called home and meant it.

I look at the lovers across the room and I can’t help but feel envious of their affections towards one another. I wish that were you and me caressing one another, holding hands, gazing into the other’s face with eyes full of love and wistfulness.

That could have been us. That could have been you and me, together. But we were just too much like luna moths — all we had was one night. One beautiful, sacred night to flap our wings and dance together before the sun rose to our demise.

And still … I haven’t heard your voice in so long. And I find myself wishing mournfully that would have been us …

We laid side-by-side in the fields, yellow dandelions waving in the breeze above us. I find I couldn’t help but keep looking over at you, your hair a firefly’s light set ablaze. And if we lived in a world of gods, I’d thank the deities of my heart for allowing me to know you, to gaze upon your visage in the long blades of grass with the summer sun beating down upon us.

scent of wheat. strawberries. magnolias. taste of spring. smell of autumn.

How does one ever go about discerning what is a dream and what is a nightmare? I go about the long, endless days waiting for you to find me in in this terrestrial existence.

I can only fathom it will be even more beautiful than anything I’ve ever dreamt of us in my dreams.

I love these hours in between, when one isn’t sure whether to say good morning or good night. The world is sleeping and the soft, lulling silence cradles around the darkness. Stars shine with more clarity against the swarthy sky and crickets chirp in the still blades of grass.

This is our time — you and me — when we come together and forge new paths like a pale Aurora Borealis streaked across the heavens. While the rest of the world is abeyant, we feel each other out in the dark, grasping for fingers in the night.

And I would trade nothing — nothing — for these precious moments, these small water drops of memory in my mind’s garden. It’s how my Life grows.

“What language do you dream in?”

I paused and looked up at the ceiling for a moment. “Well,” I breathe out, “usually it’s just English — or no language at all. But sometimes I dream in French. And once — long ago — I had a dream in English, French and Finnish. It was the strangest thing ever — and it has only happened once.”

But yet, just the other night, a new language crept its way into my dreaming state. And I never understood the words that left your nonexistent lips, but voilà. There it was. And there was recognition of the gilded vowels and consonants lifted and danced in the moonlight before dissipating into the foggy, dreamy air.

I search for meaning in the rocks, in the air, in the breeze that shakes me as I walk with my head tilted towards the sun. And I feel so certain it’s there — I’m simply not looking in the right places. Raison d’être waits just around the corner, I’m sure — perhaps waiting to be unlocked in some new language I’ve yet to learn.

Watching you was the most beautiful thing I have seen in such a long, long time. It was so marvelous — like something sweet yet intangible from a dream. A moment I dearly want to love, cherish and remember forever. And you don’t know — you have no idea. No words could I say upon your ears would lead you to believe the things I feel, the twisting, turning sensations you infuse into my stomach.

It’s so easy to dream of you, to wonder about you as I look up into the night sky.

I hope these memories always remain so sweet.

Interstellar and galactic, it was never enough for me to settle on terrestrial love. And so I link up satellites in the sky and send out messages that bounce their way into your atmosphere.

How could we ever think of distance when we’re sharing the same sky?

The sun that kisses you goodnight is the same sun that wakes me in the morning. You and I, we’d be interstellar — our love could live between the stars.

I imagine walking with you under the stars and standing so close to you that my hair would brush against your shoulders. And our hands would entwine under the night sky before you would pull me against your chest.

And after a spell, we’d retire to the warmth of the indoors. It would all be so dangerously, deliciously beautiful. And I love the way we would make each other blush, smile and giggle as we gaze through our eyelashes at one another.

Could you imagine it? I could.

And so I do.