I dreamt of you again last night.
I swear I am not obsessed with you. I just seem to carry you into places I cannot consciously reach. You appear in my sleep with that stupid softness you have, and suddenly I am awake with an ache I cannot explain without making it sound like love.
Perchance it is not love.
Maybe it is simply the memory of your mouth finding mine, replaying itself somewhere beneath my ribs. Maybe it is the way your name feels different when I am half-asleep, when there is no pride left in me to pretend I do not miss you.
In the dream, I touched you like I had been waiting forever. I remember the warmth of you, the quiet between us, the way you looked at me as though there was nowhere else you needed to be. And when you leaned into me, something inside me gave way so quietly I almost missed it.
It is strange how the smallest things can disturb you.
A hand resting where it shouldn’t. A familiar laugh. The memory of someone’s voice when they are tired. The way they say your name without knowing that you have been collecting every version of it. I can go an entire day without thinking of you, and then one insignificant thing will pull at the thread, and suddenly I am unraveling all over again.
I woke up reaching for you.
There was nothing there, obviously. Just a cold patch of bedsheet and the humiliating realization that my heart had not yet caught up with the fact that you were only a dream.
I lay there for a while, staring at the ceiling, trying to convince myself that I am fine.
Because I am.
I am not in love with you. I am not counting the hours until I see you again. I am not secretly turning every song into something about us. I am not replaying every little moment and wondering if you felt it too.
I am simply haunted by you.
There is a difference.
At least, that is what I keep telling myself.
Because I can convince myself I do not want you all day. I can be perfectly reasonable in the daylight, perfectly capable of remembering that you are just a person and I am just a person and whatever this is does not have to become anything.
Then night comes.
And somewhere between consciousness and sleep, all my carefully constructed indifference dissolves.
You find me there.
And for a few hours, I stop pretending I don’t want you.