Fragments of a Fragile Soul

Posted on March 31, 2018 by Apparently Catherine

Kate saw someone from my past recently but either didn’t share or didn’t let me remember what happened, and now they have quietly crept into my subconscious. I am dreaming uneasy dreams as your movement wakes me gently from my slumber. I nuzzle into your warmth as you wrap your arms around my body, lovingly spooning me, protecting me from my haunted mind.

I try to shake off the blanket of fear and uneasiness that has enveloped me, I try to remind myself that it was just a dream, but it was more than that, it was the raw emotion of a smothered memory. I pull you firmly toward me so that I can feel the strength and safety of your arms, remember where I am, but you misunderstand my intentions.

You are awake now, your dreams were of a different nature. You caress me fondly and press yourself against me. I try to remember that it’s you, convince myself it’s you – I know intellectually that it is, I can see you, smell you, feel you, but it doesn’t seem like you; I am trapped between worlds, unable to decipher reality.

Gently you roll me onto my back, part of me wants to resist because I still can’t tell if this is real or not, safe or not, another part of me desperately needs to escape the memory of the dream and so I pull you closer desperate to find myself a semblance of reality through your loving embrace.

You look at me suddenly and ask if I am okay, I lie and tell you that I am, pulling you closer trying to hide my face. I don’t want you to stop because I am scared to go back to sleep, back to that dream. I want to wake up completely and prove to myself that it really is you here with me but alas I’m lost in that Neverland somewhere between sleep and wakefulness and my mind doesn’t know if perhaps you are actually just him in disguise.

As you pull yourself into me I whisper ‘I love you’ and tell myself over and over that it is okay, it is you, I am safe. You tell me I am beautiful, you tell me how much you love me. I try to enjoy the closeness of your body but instead the weight of you on my chest suddenly takes my breath from my lungs and the painful familiarity of that feeling takes over as the fragments of reality splinter away.

Your heart beat feels as though it is buzzing through me, should a heart do that? I worry that there is something terribly wrong with your heart as the vibration becomes stronger and stronger, unbearable and suddenly painful. I worry about the pain in your chest and try to make sense of how you don’t even seem to notice it while I can feel your pain so strongly within me. How can I feel your pain? It doesn’t make sense. Suddenly I realise that it isn’t your chest vibrating, it is mine. Your heartbeat has now become mine the pain I felt in your chest belongs to me and I can no longer tell if it was ever even yours begin with.

I am aware that I can hear myself speaking, telling you how much I love you and yet I cannot feel my lips move. I want to be with you, I want to know that I am with you and nobody else, I want to believe that I am safe, but I can’t. My mind has divorced my body and I hide safe in my void as my subconscious works hard to bury whatever threatens to surface. Suddenly the pain is gone, the pressure on my chest is gone, no uneasiness is left, no feeling at all, nothing.

I woke in the morning feeling hollow, in a similar way to how we wake the day after someone has died; our souls empty from loss. Uneasiness still surrounding me I think of last night, unable to understand what this memory was, how it connected to the dream, I think I know loosely but there is so much I don’t remember that I don’t know if I am making the whole thing up, I try to tell myself I can’t remember because nothing happened, I am so sure nothing happened, yet why is my mind trying so hard to protect me from something that isn’t there?

Fragments of a fragile soul, trying to save me from a past I didn’t live in.