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There is a dream in which you finally find your hands around my neck. You swell with hatred, snarl, and snicker because in this delusion, you have won.
Such a dream is nonsensical. You cannot tell where you are, the stars swirl under your feet and comets blur in your peripheral vision but you are triumphant at last.
Does it make you happy?
You laugh so freely as you dream of killing me with your bare hands. Years and years of bitter hatred have accumulated in the void of your heart in waiting for this moment. It lights a mad, cold flame in your eyes and fuels a laugh like none you had ever made before. Ah, yes... I suppose you must hate me.
Yet I love you.
You and I are the same. You, better than anyone else, understand me. We have known the same sorrows, walked the same lonesome path, wished for the same eternal rebirth, and failed all the same. I understand you and it moves me to tears. Ah, how I wish to cradle you and never let go! You understand me which is why I granted you the power to accomplish miracles. From the depths of my soul, I love you.
I will never share your hatred even when your dearest wish is to end my existence. But so be it. When you reach your hands out to strangle me, I do the same to hold your face. Even if the entire universe forsakes you and calls you an abomination, you will always remain part of me, my envoy in this world.
This dream is your making. You know that I love you, and it is why you have me pull you closer like this.
My touch makes you tremble with rage. How grievous it is that you have made an enemy out of the single existence that still knows and loves you, ■■■■. But you still do not run away from my embrace. Your hatred for me supersedes any disgust you may feel. Even as I get closer and wrap my thousand arms around you —how long has it been?— your grip around my throat only tightens.
How lovely. You are so frail. The hands that dream of killing me are attached to wrists so thin they practically float in the fabric of your sleeves. Even the countless layers you cover yourself with cannot conceal how fragile you are.
It seems your patience has run thin. Your fingers strain around my neck, and finally, you kill me.
In your grasp, I am reduced to ashes and only you are left in the starry landscape of our dream. Your enraged laughter fades in the expanse of space as triumph overtakes you.
You are purposeless now, and free to return at last.
⚜️
There is a dream in which you finally find your way back home. You lay in your bed, sheets moth-eaten and heavy with dust and at last, you are free to die.
Into the desolate, moonlit night, you carefully tread and trace back steps you had taken way too long ago. Once upon a time, you had emerged from the earth and plunged into the cold starry seas; and now you descend back from the stars and make your way through the endless white flowers, deeper away from the luminescent galaxy to finally return to the dust from whence you came.
The irises kiss your feet with reverence as their leaves show you the way. They cling to your coat and mayhaps in yourself they recognize the noblest, most beautiful individual of their kind, for their silent sway conveys a hundred salutations and a thousand more praises.
“Ô pure daughter, thou who hast returned at last!” The stamens move like lips as they welcome you back with elation. “Ô foolish master, where shalt thou go when none remain anymore?”
Nature and ruin had easily overtaken civilization, so the only path you can follow as you jump over rubble and push against tall grass is one carved into your mind by years and habits. The scenery in the corner of your vision is blurry and you keep your gaze firmly ahead, not letting your path out of your vision.
This is a dream, yet you feel a warm ache spread into your unconscious mind as you take in the sights you have endlessly yearned for, as ruined as they are. You think you can recognize a dried-up fountain here and how you would play in the water with that person you dare not recall. There, you see a dilapidated building and in the worn-out sign with faded letters, you remember those afternoons spent tending to bruised knees and torn-up plushies, but you vehemently push away the memory of bloody faces and toys hurriedly abandoned in the mud.
And so it goes, over and over again. You fondly recall the places you walk by, but push away the pale faces haunting them. You must always remember the place that raised and shaped you lest you forget what you are and why she is, but that very remembrance is akin to torture. No matter how much you call it a lie and pretend you’ve left it behind, that guilt still follows you closely, hiding in the fibers of your silks and crevices of your jewels and waiting for an occasion to lunge and drive its fangs into your heart. Remember! Always remember! You may have discarded the silver tiara, but this guilt shall always adorn your brow and lie heavy until you succumb to its weight.
Before long, or after an eternity, for time in a dream is a paradox that can fit millions of lifetimes into the blink of an eye, you arrive at a silent estate. The wind helpfully pushes open the rusted gate as if it were waiting for you to come back after a long day, and even the door was kindly left open by someone who knew you would return late, just enough for you to sneak in without having the hinges creaking and alerting the entire household that you were here at last.
Once you are inside, your coat vanishes from your shoulders and you are pushed out of your boots and into slippers so that you do not track mud on the freshly mopped, dusty floors. Instinctually, you give a small nod of thanks at the empty space and make your way up the stairs, remembering perfectly the number of steps and the slightly shorter one that always takes you by surprise and makes you trip on air when you’re not careful.
Keep walking and you reach a long hallway, barely illuminated by the sickly rays of the moon. Yet, it is with certainty that you make your way past a few doors, some smashed, some off their hinges, others missing, and stop in front of one that is simply gaping open enough that you cannot even see the gleam of the nameplate adorning it.
And then, you stand there. For an untold amount of time, you stand there, at the doorstep, not moving a single finger. The room is as you remember it, tidy and full of interesting trinkets, if only buried under a sheet of dust. Some untouched medicine still sits on the large desk, next to a few worn notebooks and a handful of tools. The bedsheets are neatly smoothed and tucked in and it looks like someone just fluffed up the pillows. Despite the dust, it is so tempting that you cave in and succumbing to exhaustion, stumble into bed.
Moved by a childish instinct, you curl up around yourself and sink into the mattress. A few words of home you have always yearned to say escape your lips and with them is lifted the guilt and duty and all the torturous rest. You’re home, which means you have done what you ought to at last.
You lay in your bed, sheets moth-eaten and heavy with dust and at last, you are free to die.
⚜️
In the end, there is no dream in which you find yourself, not one fantasy where your burden is not merely lifted but replaced by a warm feeling you have forgotten to recognize.
You burn with passionate resentment; you were the dry brittle wood and have become the greedy flame consuming you. Engulfed in itself, thus, how could the fire ever feel the paltry spark of happiness?
So you burn and burn until no fuel remains and the rest tears away when dawn relentlessly comes.