(20091111)
he leaves in the middle of the night with the shoes gone from their stand and lights off. when you wake up in the morning, there's a note on the kitchen counter, like how they do in movies.
there's a picture on the kitchen counter, a snapshot of a ferris wheel from a couple birthdays ago when he had taken you to the theme park, though he didn't particularly like them, because it was your birthday. your smiling face is next to his, with his hair blowing over his face, laughing, with the sky at your back, world at your feet.
the note says, "just pretend i was a dream of yours," on the back of the picture. the picture is solid and real and perfect, the most perfect dream you've ever had. it's two in the afternoon but you put the picture under your pillow, smooth down the side of his bed, and go back to sleep.
you dream of burning cities and people with wings that don't move instead of dreaming of him. "did the city catch on fire while i was asleep?" you ask them, the people that visit you. "were there perfect angels with sad faces and motionless wings walking with bare feet, searching for forever," you ask them, but they shake their head and look at you with sad faces like the people with wings in your dream. they hold you close and whisper to you but you can't feel their wings so you push them away.
he doesn't come back and you try not to wake up.
"dreams aren't supposed to hurt, right?" you ask yourself because you've already pushed everyone else away. "they don't hurt, they don't hurt." you don't hurt.
sixty eight hours of all night and they come back, faces that you don't know. you clench your hand around the picture he left, the note he left, and dream through the screaming and people carrying you out, just so he'll be there with you (but you never dream of him, no matter how hard you try). you don't protect yourself because you're too busy dreaming and they take you away with your eyelids closed and tears falling down your cheek.
it's the perfect world, you wake up in, with a stable environment and white walls. the smiles are all pretty in this perfect world of yours with windows that stay closed. you can't fall back asleep because there's always this white light against the back of your eyelids so instead, you wish you were dead.
you finally start dreaming of him while you're awake. his face here and there, holding you close while you're backed up against the wall. he silences your screams with smiles and fingers that run through your hair. sometimes, you close your eyes and can feel him but when you open them, he's not there anymore, so you don't anymore.
the perfect world burns. the perfect world burns and people with wings that don't move come. you push them away though you've been wanting to meet them all this time, because they want to take you away from this perfect world, the only world where you've been able to meet him again.
the perfect world burns and you burn away with it, and it hurts. "dreams aren't supposed to hurt, right?" you ask yourself, because everyone else ran away when the world started burning. "they don't, they don't, but this does," you say with a smile, even though you hurt.
it hurts but it's real and you try to hold onto the ashes of the photograph, note, he left behind for you but they disappear through the cracks of your fingers.
the dream disappears but it's okay because you're real.