Entwined Path : Part B

I look up at the stars, and all I think about is you...

The Son of Dreams

A dream. A dimension. An Arrival.

–A note found crumpled and shoved in the back of a drawer–

I shouldn’t write this down, but I might lose my last shred of sanity if I don’t get it out.

I look up at the stars, and all I think about is you.

Just when I thought I had no dreams left, I found you. For so long I couldn’t see you, but I heard your voice once, and I can’t get it out of my head. It’s like a melody I used to know by heart, but now I only remember that it existed, not the notes themselves.

I don’t dream like this.

I have to believe you’re out there somewhere.

You’re safe tucked inside my dreams, untouched by my world of deception. It should bring me comfort, but the need to know you consumes me, even in the daylight.

I’m haunted by the ghost of you, and I don’t even know if you’re real.

What kind of man does that make me?

I thought there was nothing left to want. When you have everything, you have everything to lose, but you can’t lose what you never had.

So why does it feel like I’ve already lost you?

For a while now, I’ve felt you in the periphery. It was cruel enough when all I had was your lingering scent, ink splashed across a page and an open window after rain. Now you’re closer. Try as I might, I can’t touch you. I can’t speak to you. I can only stand there like a damn fool, watching you move through shadow while I’m frozen.

You carry grief like a second spine.

That might haunt me the most: not knowing your story.

In the dream, you stood on the pier, playing with the shadows. I had never known anyone to do anything but fear them, but you–you made fire with them. For the first time, I saw your face.

I wasn’t prepared for the way it hit me. Seeing you there, bathed in light, stole my breath away.

You’re the same and yet different from the last time we met.

Your beauty is ancient, mythic, but what had me doubling over was the weight of every lifetime with you that flashed before my eyes.

You must hate me.

I’ve turned my back on you so many times, but I am nothing if not a man of my word. I am bound by duty. You always stood on the opposite scale from my responsibility, and I can only survive the tipping of one. So I chose what was safe, not just for me but for us.

Together, we would have been hunted. Even if you’d stood beside me, there was no promise I could protect you. You never wanted to hear of it, but it was true. I couldn’t bear to watch you die, or worse, to witness my world devour your fire until there was nothing but ash. I have seen it too many times. I would rather carry the weight of what we left unfinished across infinite lifetimes than see that spark fade from your eyes.

So I leave. Every time we collide, I run.

I vowed not to look for you again, but the stars keep looking for me.

I gaze up at the night sky, and I swear it’s mocking me. Every lifetime, I have chosen more distance, yet somehow, against every odd and through every circumstance, life threads us together again. Each time, I have to walk away as if leaving you doesn’t carve a mark into my soul.

If I’m being honest, I hate you a little too.

You’re the one thing that could bring everything I’ve built crumbling down, and the worst part is that, time and time again, I almost let you. I hate myself most for that.

I have no right to want you. Yet, there I was, watching you weave darkness into light, wondering if you could turn our fate into something different.

Then you looked at me, as if you truly saw me, your eyes brimming with softness and sorrow, and said, “I release you.”

Something shifted.

I reached for you, your name on my lips, but I don’t even know what it is.

That’s how I woke, suffocating on the mystery of you.

-j.m.shaffer

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Note: I made some edits after recording, so I apologize that they aren’t exactly the same, but the sentiment remains in tact. Thank you for listening/reading!