In my dreams I am wild. Lost. Stumbling through the city at night, unhinged, unattached. There is something missing I cannot find. Torn between base desires and the knowledge that for whatever wrongs I have endured, I am still this – whatever that may be. There is some strange sense of solidity in my being that I can’t make sense of, but is welcome nonetheless.
I take her arm, we walk a while, through the streets. I resolve to put the past behind. Guilt shudders through me, but it passes, I am free. This time, I was deserted, the blame is not mine.
I am wrong. Realities collide. Drunk, crazed, my past screams into view. But she is a stranger now, contact is futile. I ask her why, where she’s been, what has happened, but she is gone. It is none of my business, beyond my concern. I am alone.
The dream ends as I sit on a traffic island, anonymous cars pass by as I smoke. In my dreams I still smoke.