December 18, 2002
Freudian Drip
I had quite a strange dream last night. Odd that it should return to me during a harrowing game of Tetris a few minutes ago, but return to me it did, along with the feelings that accompanied it.
I dreamt that I went back to Ryan. I left Mike for him, and was seemingly happy with this decision. I have this dream-memory of prancing through the parking lot of some random shopping center, and I am leading Ryan, and he is humouring me in the way that Mike would, skipping along behind me.
I have a real memory of Mike doing Fred Astaire dance steps down the stairs at the Festival of Lights.
Ryan's hands were on me again, he was in my bed but I would not bed him. We were laying there naked but I did not look at him; I pulled the sheets up over my body.
They were navy blue.
My mom was smiling at our happy match, smiling as she has never done for any of the boys that I have brought home. Ryan and I are in the back seat holding hands, he strokes my thumbs much the way that Mike does.
But he doesn't put his hands in my hair. He doesn't sing to me.
I didn't know it was a dream, and the pain that next hit me was real.
In my house, curled on my bed, looking as though I should've been smoking a cigarette, but I am crying instead.
I know my mistake. I realize that I have left the person that truly loved me, that loved me through and through despite my certainly bitter core. Ryan, this man that I had chosen, loved me only for the sweet flesh I presented, and not the tender delicate places inside.
I cried and I cried and I felt my heart sever itself from life giving arteries and I cried yet. My mother stood over me, Ryan at my side. I ignored him, as though he were not there, I looked up to my mother with smeared cheeks and bleary eyes.
"I love him. I love Mike."
She looks at me, and she sighs, she does not reach out to comfort me with her hands and instead uses words.
"You have to do what you have to do. It's never too late."
I look up in time only to see Ryan walking out of the house, to hear the door slam behind him. And I realize that his sweet things were only a semblance of what I was used to, what I deserved, that he sought after me because he knew he did not truly have me, that he lavished attention on me now only to take it away later when I was firm within his grasp.
He walked out, and he didn't look back.
I don't remember finding Mike. I don't remember apologizing, I don't remember begging him to have me back again.
I remember crying. Perhaps I remember familiar hands in my hair.
I'm crying now. My dreams can do this to me, leave this lingering pain. Irrational, maybe, but I feel it all the same. The idea of leaving him hurts more than being left.
With Mike, I don't need to wonder if I love him. With Mike, I don't need to wonder.
Last night, Mike had me pinned to the floor after my unsuccessful battle to win the box of matches away from him. He looks down at me, a soft smile on his face.
"What am I going to do with you?"
"I don't know. What are you thinking about doing with me?"
His smile widens, he leans down a little and I am staring directly into his eyes, his eyes of pitch.
"I'm going to pick you up, carry you into my room, lay you down on the bed, then lay down next to you and go to sleep. Doesn't that sound wonderful?"
I nod.
"Yes."
And I pull him down to me and hold him for a second, feeling the beat of his heart against my ear, feeling the soft cotton of his t-shirt and the warmth of the skin underneath.
And I can't get over him. And I knew then, and I know now, that I never will.
astera at 11:23 a.m.