There are certain things I know to be true, and I’m surprised I don’t receive more external confirmation: dust and laundry never increase. They just don’t. And women never die.
No woman has ever died in the history of the world, especially not from a heart attack. The Neanderthal women are among us, Helen of Troy, too. The old lady who crept by us on the beach a few years ago, and smiled, is exactly the same now.
I asked my mentor, who spent a decade trying to get toilets for farmworkers in the fields, who spent his life fighting sweatshops, what kind of world he hoped to see. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘A little better?’ I guess he wasn’t sure of much.
Me, I cherish our nightly journey of sleep. The bed stretches out on all sides forever. You’ve dressed in a dove-gray sleep mask and pink foam ear plugs. We lie on our sides, turned toward each other, holding hands, letting go sleepily, finding hands again…
We’re going to the same place, right? I know this to be true.
No? How can we go to different places? That’s just sad, and scary. How can your dream be only in your head? It should flow through the synapses of our hands.
Are you lonely in your head? The dream fills everything.
I rarely dream of you, but so what. The journey of sleep, the journey of sleep! Who turns their light out first? The last bit of light shines on the pure white comforter, and the months of darkness begin. We face each other. I’m so lucky. How many decades I traveled alone, or holding onto a pillow.
We smile, and rise, and start to fly through the warm wispy clouds before full sleep. We fly like Superman on his side.
Now our souls are playing together. Now they separate. You go investigate over there, I’ll investigate over here, and we’ll compare notes when our phones go off.
Fuck that.
The situation is wrong, and sleep is deeply flawed. When someone is after you with a gun, I need to be there. Your heart races, you panic, and I don’t even know it! This is like a husband bound to a chair while…
Does the lump of me comfort you in any way?!
But you often experience bliss in your dreams. Well, that’s a good thing, no complaints there. Sweet dreams. That’s all I can say. I try to say the rest through my hand. I have to let you go. I pray you’ll be ok. I pray you’ll come back to me. Yet it’s all so cozy.