It was as though he was only there because he was waiting for someone else to come or something else he'd planned to happen. I had been working on editing poems to submit for publication (which is a reality) in my one bedroom apartment (which my imagination rented for the night) and suddenly he came through the door, as if my small room was a hallway, or merely on the way to some place else. But he stayed. His hair was longer. He had a beard of sorts that came and went throughout his stay. I pulled him onto my bed where I was at my computer writing, and he willingly reclined to review my poems. (He's also a writer and I value a million percent that amazing part of him.) At first I was just next to him, but then I took his hand and moved closer in to him. I was so glad he was there and was nervous what to do to not offend him so he wouldn't leave. I held his hand. He let me. He read but I watched him. He didn't say much. At one point I got up to do something else and when I came back he was visibly emotionally changed. Oh no, I thought. He's read the poem about him. . . Before he could say anything and I could think how to react, I threw myself at him and kissed him, to which he immediately withdrew. Good for him, too. But I felt awkward for sure and just waited. There was a surprising lack of conversation, just looks; the look he gave me was somewhere between offended, hurt, and confused, and desperate desire. For a few eternal moments, our eyes worked out the problem we needed to communicate and then instantaneously the tension and problems were gone between us. We hugged. We'd been in each other's presence for minutes now, but the hug was like two old friends reuniting after years of separation, joyful and tight. And then, we decided to have a snack. :) We ate peanut butter (the irony of which cannot escape me, and if you read the poem, you'll see), both with our own spoon out of the jar. I looked at him and smiled, took my spoon and shoved peanut butter on his face. He returned the favor and the playful pushing and poking turned into sexual tension, basically, and we started peanut butter kissing (I must say some day I'd like to try that) and maybe a little more happened... :) I remember just really enjoying the situation, having him with me. No guilt or grief, just friends having a little fun. Kinda kinky fun, but still fun...
Then, the other night, maybe a week ago, I had this brilliantly insane dream. It was like a t.v. sitcom setting (Think Dharma and Greg). The husband comes home, acting very strangely. After trying some trivial home welcoming, the wife recognized something was really off when the husband asked, "Do you know the way to Hell?" Strange to me she replied, "Sometimes I wish I did." And the 'audience' laughter was cued. Somehow we now knew that the husband was possessed (again?) and she sighed, "Come on." She itched her calf (i remember that distinctly for some reason...) and walked toward the door of their small house that led downstairs. Apparently Hell had an entrance connected to their basement. She invited her husband down with her. Camera followed. The basement was definitely cave-like, no formal walls with sheetrock. There was one human-looking figure in a window that was carved out of the rock wall (think bank teller) to take your name before s/he'd send you to the elevator across from her window, an elevator like in mining shafts, with two metal-bar doors that cage around the descending. The elevator had two henchmen guards the size of gorillas to escort the traveler to Hell. The wife, now with some other man and her husband, told the husband, time to go, but he just felt like he couldn't go. The devil inside him knew that he'd be purged out of the man if he descended to Hell and made it out (Hell turned out to be a river with an eventual opening that if you made it down and out whatever you'd been struggling with would be left somewhere along the way). The wife said, "Well, we've signed in, we can't very well not go!" So she continued down with the other mystery man, leaving her husband and his devil to struggle with the decision. He paced back and forth for hours. At five minutes to five PM, the human-thing in the window informed the husband that it was closing time. S/he was going back down with the last elevator for the night, and it was his last chance. She and the two henchmen crowded into the cage, ready to descend without considering any hesitation, fully prepared to make the husband wait alone in the basement cave until Hell opened again in the morning. WIth a brave step he pushed into the elevator barely squeezing in as the henchmen used their great strength to close the doors barely containing the four bodies. As they descended the camera changed scenes to a small, thin boat bearing the wife and mystery man, dressed in long, pristine white clothing (think total LOTR elf scene), and the wife looks expectantly toward the gaping exit they had just passed through. Fade back to the upstairs of the small house. The wife has a gathering of people at her house. They ask her about her husband and she gazes suddenly into the air, seeing into another time or dimension. For some reason she can't remember his name, she can't tell them about what happened. For some reason everyone understands that to mean she's now possessed. Back down she goes, I guess. The dream ended as the camera faded out from her sightless gaze.
Nice, huh? ha. Love my brain.
