I had this dream
You were finally getting out of the hospital. We were all there - your mother, your sister, your ex girlfriend, a choice few others. I was at once relieved, but worried that you wouldn’t be healthy for long, you’d been in the hospital for a year and a half, after all. I was worried you’d changed. We all were. We sensed your mood would be melancholy or maybe you would be quiet and unable to blend back into society. We wanted our old friend back. The sea-glass eyes, the laughter, the crass sense of humour. You arrived and I didn’t see you. I could hear you speaking, hear you laughing, saying all the things you’d said before. Sarcastic and playful and usual. I wondered why I’d let myself tell everyone you were dead. Why did I keep saying you were gone? I’d known the whole time you weren’t. Throughout this whole dream I didn’t see you once. I woke up confused and with a great feeling of loss in my heart. In my waking life I know that I tell people you’re gone because you are. And I couldn’t even see you in my dream, that’s how far you are from me. Every day I wish it wasn’t so, and every day I’m reminded that it is.
