The Man of my Dreams

I settle into bed and try to relax. His arms wrap around me filling me with a warmth I can’t describe. Even his scent is familiar. As if it’s been there forever. I feel myself relax as I let myself rest against him. I feel safe. Like your suppose to when your in love. Like everything can be solved with a hug. But I suppose I’ve always been a hopeless romantic.

I open my eyes hoping to see his face staring back at me, but I have to wake up to the reality of it… He was never here in the first place.

For years it’s been like this. A dream just barely out of reach. I go to sleep with my pillows tucked in around me and pretend that I have found my soulmate. Someone to experience simple pleasures with in life. And I fall asleep to happy thoughts of a version of life I want so bad. Only to wake up. My soulmate is but a figment of my imagination. Wearing the face of my current fascination. But more often than not, it’s just my pillow. I’d thought I’d found him a couple of times in the past… but I don’t seem to attract ones that are meant to last. It’s a shame, though some of the break ups have been completely necessary. And yet I find that I miss the notion of having someone the most when I do not have someone and haven’t had someone for a long time. I miss the imaginary ones that never really existed. The ones born from movie characters and crushes I’ve passed by. The ones that never existed.

Which shouldn’t make sense. How do you miss a person who was never really there? Someone that was just a clever lie? Most people now a days would say it’s a mental illness. And maybe they’re right. I certainly feel broken. And not just because I enjoy living inside my head most days. But because I feel both complete on my own and incomplete without someone else. I’m broken because I want love so much. And not just self-love. Which everyone always reminds I am more than capable of giving myself. But I don’t feel this emptiness and loss from self-love. Not when I am right here. Not when I have made leaps and jumps at being gentle with myself and caring for myself.

But I’m not sure if anyone really gets it. How you can go all day, loving the way life is. There is light and joy. Only to go to sleep at night and feel the pull of an empty heart. Just waiting to be filled with some sense of longing. Of wanting to be loved and to love someone else. But then again it would seem that I have only loved ghosts.

In the comfort of night, I can dream and almost believe that he is real. That he is there. Even if he is but an outline in my mind. Dynamic but one dimensional. He can be tall, handsome and warm. Yet thoughtful, caring and confident. Devoted. Not perfect, even my imagination craves some reality to the form of him. But there. It’s like knowing that a piece of home is missing without even knowing what that home fully looks like. And even in the comfort if it. The dream occasionally cracks. Reality has to press in and remind me that it’s an illusion. And I feel as thought I am living in more than one world. Like I’m walking a thin line between what is and what could be. And if I fall from that line, I risk falling into the unknown. All because I am in love with something both real and fictional.

I turn away from my pillow and look out into the dark hallway…. Searching for the outline of someone who was never there. Because maybe if I close my eyes again I can dream. And step over the line for a little while. It may be delusional. But it’s my dream. And so I close my eyes again and wait for my brain to drift off. Back into the depths of my own imagination.