When I'm in the middle of a dream...

Please don't wake me, no
don't shake me
Leave me where I am
I'm only sleeping

These dreams are hopeless. I wake up and I fall apart. I'm in love with you and you don't know. You're thousands of miles away and you don't think of me. We're at the movies. We walk up flights and flights of stairs to get where we need to be. You kiss me. Or I kiss you? I think I kiss you because you're so beautiful and you'll never know. In this dream we live next door to each other, a patio connects our front doors. Your apartment is filled with books and books and red light.

Love is real. Real is love. Love is knowing we can be. Love is free. Free is love. Love is living. Living, love. Love is needing to be loved.

You're in love with other people who don't appreciate the things you do. Girls that dance around and girls that are much older than I am and girls who you don't think of as your sister or little friend. Girls that have figures to match your own. Built and beautiful. Girls who don't honk at you when you're walking down the street. They are probably level-headed. I give you advice on how to get these girls. This is unrequited love at its worst degree.

But of all these friends and lovers, there is no one compares with you. And these memories lose their meanings. In my life, I love you more.

We are in your room reading prose. Science fiction. We are reading something that makes me swallow with excitement. I think you might love me. We whisper to each other. There is still red light all around. I don't think you touch me, but your words are so close that I think that you do. I tell you everything. I tell you about all these years and especially these past months, these brief meetings, these conversations we have. I hope you don't think I'm naive. I know as much as you know. But I don't know more except that we belong together. I know it. I cry.

Im looking through you, where did you go? I thought I knew you--I'm looking through you, you're not the same. You're voice is soothing but the words aren't clear. Love has a nasty habit of disappearing overnight.

It feels like someone else is in the room so you say you can't make love to me. Not just because we hate that phrase, but because you don't want to. You tell me it's okay. That you have to go away. You're going abroad, you're going to go live in the world. You can't wait for me to grow up even though we want to go to the same place in the same directions. Even though we love everything good and sad and beautiful.

I once had a boy, or should I say--he once had me. We talked until two and then he said, 'It's time for bed.' And when I awoke, I was alone, this bird had flown.

After this speech I'm finally over you. I imagine you in love with a tall girl with skin as white as yours. I imagine you happy. She's not a cynical as we. I write you a letter and leave it for you under your door. It says things like I love you but you need to go. I love you but we're not in love in a movie. I quote Proust and Borges and all the movies we share in common. I quote Cervantes and Bradbury. Weird combinations. We love them all.

I don't want to spoil the party so I'll go. I wonder what went wrong? I've waited far too long. Though tonight you've mad me sad, I still love you.

I go back to my room next door and sleep the dead sleep of someone broken and defeated. The room is yellow. In the night I wake up and you're in my bed. There is a black and white movie playing on a small TV. You are close to me under the blankets. You tell me there's no one in the world you'd rather be with. You hint at us being together for an eternity when you get back. When we have time to be together.

Please don't spoil my day
I'm miles away
And after all
I'm only sleeping

[Trust me... I know this writing sucks.]