The reluctant sleeper

You sleep. You wake up. You fall back to sleep. You wake up again.

Time is running out. Hope is running low. Conversation, never starts nor finishes. 

Want to cry. So cry. Cry lots of tears, droplets of them. Onto the pillow, the soft unimaginative pillow. No earth-shattering thoughts or exchanges of hurtful words. Cry because that's what's left of it. The life not led. The promise not realized.

Declaration of love exchanged. Loud and clear. Really. Really. Really. Loud. It's real love. Heart breaking love. Simple. Untainted. Time tested. Love. If you have not experienced it. I urge you to make a go at it. At least once. At east once in a lifetime you should feel it in your heart. You should learn how it is formed.

Love: An idea formed not when you two are together but apart. The longing. Desperate longing of wanting, and needing to be together. The passage of time. The sitting across the table and when you look up it's the world's best looking person staring at you back. Smiling, and looking at you just so. You know you are loved. You can't stop saying things because silence will make you cry. You want to cry because you don't know what else to do in this world to will a different future. A future where only you and he would exist. A world where you don't have to wonder when you'd see each other again. A world where you belong with each other and you know that he knows that you only want to be with him and no other. Does he know how much you love him? Does he care? Does he know how much you want to just sit there and cry until all tears are dried out and that you can no longer feel? Does he know how much it hurts to love him? Does he really want to know?

"Do you want me to leave my family?" You finally ask.

"I don't want you to leave your children." He says.

"I know. I can't leave them. They are mine" You answer.

"Do you want me to leave my husband?" You try again.

"I don't want you to think that you'd made a mistake." He answers.

"Why? Why being with you a mistake?" You ask again.

He won't answer. So you weep. Silently, quietly, collection of puddle of water, tears. 

He enters you. "I love you so much." He says.

"I love you too." You are exchanging words of love again.

"You really do love me." He confirms his suspicion.

You wipe the tears trailing on your cheeks before his lips touch your face. 

"I do. I love you. Only you." You reply.

Sleep is overrated in circumstance like that. But when he's finished, you are left with nothing. You lay there like a reluctant sleeper. You watch the darkness unfolds and gradually the crack of dawn announces the arrival of the pending departureYou must leave soon. The room is quiet. This is the room where you have spent many nights over, over the years. You continue to daydream a little. You also remember last night's dream.

Say. "I dreamed that you were married." 

Answer. "But you know that I'm not married."

Reply. "I so wish that you were married. Like me."

He who suffers vicissitudes delivers the last and final line: "You are indeed married. That's not a dream. That's my life. I live that life, every day."

You cry. Voice cracked.  sleep no more. 

"Let's sleep a little more." He tucks you in and drifts back to sleep. It's going to be a long day. He leaves town again. You reluctantly follows. But you can't fall asleep.

"How long is your longest relationship?" You ask.

"With you. I met you ten years ago. At a canoe trip." He is drifting back to sleep.

"It does not count. Plus it's not ten years. It's fifteen. And it's not canoe, it's white water rafting." You correct him as you stare at the ceiling while the tears are now free flowing.

Dead silence eats up the warm bedroom. He's not answering. He has drifted back to sleep. Safe and sound.

You remember what's like to fall in love.

You remember because you fall in love every day with this man. You have always loved him. You have loved him since you were a child. Now you are a woman. You are his. But not quite. You don't know how to travel from point A to point B. But you are convinced that he's waiting for you at Point B. An alternate future where love is not just some words exchanged with bodily fluid. It's the essence of being. It's your home, and his too.

The journey to home is proven to be arduous one. All you know is the pain, the stabbing pain, accompanied or unaccompanied, by your declaration of love for each other.