Bathtub Dream

A dream I had...

There’s a bathtub where my bed should be. And part of me wants you to stay away, despite the obvious and perfect associations. The steaming water makes the winter outside seem like another planet, but we know what it feels like to be aliens. So you close the door behind you and move through the room’s fog like a lost hallucination that’s finally found its way. We’re together even though we’re not, or at least that’s how it feels. We settle into saturation like it’s a home we’ve been separated from for so long; like the past six years were just dreams of a confused reality playing out in our unsuspecting minds. This strange version of familiarity is incorruptible because the destruction is a context we’ve left in photo albums. We’re light-years beyond the breakdowns where blame tastes like cocktails of soapy water and dead skin. But interruption is just downstairs, pleading for company and attention like some overlooked middle child. And even though our bodies have acclimated themselves to the water’s temperature and your absence will ruin the chemistry, you feel some obligation to the situation below. I practically beg you to stay, tugging at your flawlessly smooth skin; skin that refuses to shrivel and wrinkle despite our conditions. But your perplexing sense of responsibility for some invisible urgency pulls you away and I wonder what it is about me that always compels you to leave. As you stand and shiver, water dripping from your body, I sink beneath the surface because I’ve tried it all; because I don’t want you to mistake the bath water for tears… or visa versa. And even in this world I’m thinking about sleeping pills. Even in this world I remember how you helped me through the frozen seasons. So I wake in cold, tepid water, convulsing like a newborn just extracted from the womb. I’ve seen these shades of a life before and they always appear as an ugly misrepresentation of yesterday. But truth and accuracy are regret and misery, so I’ll let my little remaining body heat lend itself to the water, just in case you feel like coming back.