The Dream

My feet are tucked under my body in a crouched position, the pads of which lightly touch the bottom surface of the pool, easily supporting the weight of the two buoyant bodies floating above. Her smooth legs wrap around my hips, she sits gently on my thighs. The defined arms of this well-kept and mature woman squeeze my neck, her chin firmly resting on my shoulder and mine on hers, just above the water line, a combination of sweat and water only adding to the sensation from the skin of our cheeks pressed firmly together. My arms wrap completely around her back, the string from her bikini top beneath my left hand, the thumb and forefinger of my right hand rubbing the base of her head and top of her neck as if to pull any possible remaining tension from her mind. We hold each other and float aimlessly through the shallow end of the pool, completely unaffected by any outside energy other than the blistering sun beaming through a cloudless blue summer Atlanta sky. The energy created in the convergence of souls resonates love earned through time, through experience.

“Where have you been?” I ask. “I’m so glad you’re home. God, I’ve missed you!”

I pull my head back from her shoulder, look into her deep green eyes and lean forward to kiss the same familiar lips of home, so readily available to me for the past 10 years.

With no warning my body jolts, and I gasp. My eyes open suddenly and my breathing regulates. I am wide awake and staring at the ceiling of my hotel room.

I know immediately. My body knows. I know where I am. I know how I got here. I don’t need to look left or right. I don’t need to see anything else. I still don’t understand it. It still doesn’t make sense.

The tears roll down the sides of my face, creating pools of their own inside my ears, drowning out the outside world. “If the tears only flowed inward,” I think, “Filling my lungs, drowning me into a deeper sleep where the weightless embrace could be reality once again.”

I wipe my eyes and begin my day…again.