you are dreaming of red hair. red hair like oceans. you are pressing your face into softness and lying against the flesh. you are dreaming of hushed midnight laughings, naked on sheets that are falling away. you are dreaming of idylls and soul-mates, and the dip of her nose at the end of the day, wrinkling every time that she smiles.
laurel.
her very name is the flower you dream of when you think of that hair. you see blossoms cascading, and picture her laughing. you picture her still in your reverie, long long after she is gone. you see her running through the stalks of a million wild flowers, but none can compare to the brightness that lies in her eyes. no petal approaches the way that the light softly wisps from dark corners to caress the fall of her face.
i reach out to touch your face. but you're lost in a dream, and i am farther still.
i am softly, quietly watching. you are reading of denver and dreaming of what she is doing there now. she sends news of cities and of friends and of men. you are thinking then back on the night when you learned of the man she was coming to love when she extinguished the light in your heart. remember? it was that night that i sent you my letter, too.
you told me you weren't sure. you didn't know, but i knew. i knew of what you were dreaming ...
out where you are, she is there.
knee deep in roses she smiles at you the way that she did the very first time you met. she blushes up to the roots of that long long hair. she is so close you can feel her pressed on your flesh through the thickness of inches of air in between. already you know her. she hands you one petal, and looks at you now through a haze of green and irises.
i watch as the radiance hits you.
laurel.
how she glows. how you swoon, and i laugh to see you in such a state of irrationality inside of this dream i've made up for you. a dream that i've dreamed, trying to explain how you feel when you tell me you're still in love -- something to soften the blow.
you are reading of denver. you are dreaming of hair, and it is on fire, aburst with flames almost as bright as the ones in your heart. but it is me who is standing beside you now, my short dark hair a mass of crumbling charcoal, smoked and ruined and cold.
i turn away.
i am dreaming of black hair, dark, hard and bristly. black hairs on your chin and more hairs, soft above your mouth. i feel your weight on top of me, kiss your pale, long neck, and drive you ever closer. enthrall in your embrace and the deep, guttural tone in my ear that is something moving inside of you. i whisper your name and watch the world flash in light, feeling your skin in my hands.
we are alone in this place, except for one presence, a presence that lingers behind. except for a girl in a dream.
i was waiting until after to ask you of dreams, because of the things i did not want to see.
tell me. tell me your dreams.
i watch as her face floats down through your eyes to lie there at last on the surface. i see it awash in the halo of deep ginger tresses that pervade your every word.
you tell me you're still in love.
but i do not say what i long to say. until i can turn my heart away, the way i've turned my hot flushed face, the bitterness holds like a rapture.
in silent dreams that possess me all night, red hair is flowing in unending currents, past me and on to other dimensions, reopening lines in my heart . i wake and i start, and i find myself still in your arms. i watch your face and gulp.
i bite down as the radiance hits me.
i sink back and sleep, avoiding these dreams of red hair that linger though i ready myself to go. dreams of red hair that follow me down. dreams of red hair falling in oceans.
dreams of red hair swallowing me whole.