The defencelessness of dreaming

Ester Levinrad

A late night – a birthday party:
I am sleeping in his bed
Judiciously pulled apart
To make two twins.
Coming from the bathroom, suitably pyjamaed,
We carefully navigate the practicalities,
I turn off the lights.
“I’ve never been so tired,” he says.
I hold
My chatter.

In the morning
We two who are so careful
May as well have broken something -
violated friendship –
For the awkwardness in the dusky room.
I may as well
have reached out and touched him,
Then something other than imaginings
Would be the cause
Of this.

The alarm goes and he rises
I hear him, pulling on jeans, go to the bathroom.
I must have slept in the early morning
To wake unusually, on my stomach,
Arms above my head, duvet half thrown off.
I who usually lie burrowed in blankets,
Shoulders hunched,
Curled up and foetal
When alone.

Then I think,
I wonder,
Perhaps I did.
Perhaps what I remember is what I dreamt
And what I did is something else ...
Perhaps I talked – or touched – in sleep
And will never know
For he will never say.
And so I go on, fearing,
The defencelessness of dreaming.

LitNet: 30 May 2006

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