The Morning Sun

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I toss again in the night, seeking a cool spot on my pillow. I flip it over, and over again. I kick off the rugs, and pull them back. Nothing settles me. My heart is racing and I want to cry. Im so tired. So goddam tired.

Today I went to the beach. Rode my bike. Drank alcohol with friends in the warm sun. Ate a hearty dinner, and made love to my boyfriend. All these things should make me fall asleep and yet, here I am.

The room is dark despite the blinds being open. The street lights are dim tonight. I know the window is open because I can feel the breeze on my cheek. But I cant fall asleep. Im dizzy despite the fact that Im lying down. I cannot comprehend the spinning, falling sensation I feel when I close my eyes. Its light at first, like a ripple behind my eyelids, but as I feel myself starting to drift off, it builds into a vacuous whirlpool, my touch with reality is lost and I jolt to attention. Its feels like Ive slipped off a ledge, like Ive dropped 30 feet from one surface, destined for another.

I just want to sleep. Like everyone else.

I turn to my side and stare at the wall beneath my desk. He is there, and I can see him more clearly as the moments pass. He is just watching me. Smiling eyes, intense green and framed by thick eyebrows, baby faced. I move my lips but no sound comes out, I beg him to leave me alone. Im happy now, just look at me. Why are you here? This is the third time in as many nights that Ive woken to find him beside my bed. Sometimes she is with him, the girl with no face. She could be any girl, but she stands by him. Tonight, she is in the far background, pretending not to pay attention, but stealing the occasional glance. I dont think she has any control over him being here. But she comes with him, it is part of the ritual. The torture.

I reach out to touch his face as I have done so many times before. The image shimmers and pulls back. I ask him again, without sound, why he is here. And he cant answer that. He just smiles sadly. The way someone would smile at a terminally ill child... A smile that tells you there is hope, but eyes that belie this smile to reveal a deep sorrow.
Images are projected around him of all the times we have met, and all the times we have parted, and all the times we've spoken. I watch them play like silent films around his face. I turn away, seeking the warmth beside me in my bed, wrapping my arms around the shape in the darkness, but he is still behind me, huddled beneath my desk. I know he wont leave until he has watched me fall asleep. But doesnt he realise that I wont sleep until he leaves!?

Eventually Im so exhausted, that I DO sleep. I sleep praying that the daytime will come. And it does. But not before more nightmares, nightmares of being hated by scores of people, by being ridiculed by friends, by being embarressed in front of crowds - theyre all the same, these dreams, these nightmares. I have no ally, I am all alone, and it is me against the world. Please bring on the daytime when I know this is not true.

I used to dream like this once before, when I could reach out to touch his face, and meet soft olive skin beneath my fingertips. But those relentless dreams made me hate him, violently. I dreamt of the pain that he brought to me, real or imagined. Then eventually he went away, and after a longer time, they went away. Now he doesnt visit in my dreams, he visits in real time and brings his gift of insomnia. And now when I dream, I dont hate him, but everyone else turns on me. Im alone in a sea of strangers or worse, Im alone in a sea of friends... who pretend to not know who I am.

And now, the greatest present that I receive each day, is the morning sun. Because it is at this moment that I realise that I am the furtherest away from having him visit me again.
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