She dreams in color, she dreams in red...

(Not my normal stuff, I know. It’s for a writing project I’m contributing to. Feel free to skip it, it’s mostly rubbish.)

As the words poured forth my knees trembled with the realization that I had relinquished control over them. My lips formed around their heaviness as I waited with trepidation. Silence was deafening - the sound of my heart roaring in my ears, concentration impossible. My tongue slid them over my mouth - tasting the betrayal, savoring the forbidden undertones. Debating.

You can't speak in brackets.

At first it was just the faintest hint of a whisper. My heart stilled as I listened to them tumble softly over the precipice. Repeat it. Placating you. Again. Defiantly - louder and with more conviction - they reverberated against the quiet stillness, mingled with heavy breathing, filling the crevices left by your absence. They escaped before I had the ability to question their truth. Drawn to you as a moth to the flame - unaware of the impending certainty of demise. Passport in hand, the gentle realization of the finality of it all. The end looming before the beginning ever started.

The dawn of your morning, the dusk of your existence.

Everything that I've ever believed in, everything I've ever thought as truth - no actual Truth, as unquestionable reality was suddenly precarious. Threats of being brought before the inquisition and being deemed fraudulent. Branded as a heretic. My chest emblazoned with a crimson initial.

Your Spring, your Summer - Autumn and Winter.

Risks evaluated, dreams laid bare - the stretched canvases vulnerable to the salty spray of the sea. Inextricably entwined, circumstances and complexities be damned.

What would make you happy? Truly and completely happy?

The query surprised me, as I was suddenly doubtful. I don't know. I thought I did, before. Before, things were so much simpler. Sophomoric, perhaps. Comfortable. Assured. Predictable. You dared to question my belief in coincidences. Happiness teasingly - tantalizingly offered as tangible - accented and heavy with superfluous "u"s.

What would you say if ...

Hush. You’re drunk, and pandering dreams from miles away. I don’t believe you. I refuse to. Temptation to hear your voice overwhelming, crippling. I won’t fold.

The warmth of your breath against my neck as you sing me to sleep.

What would make me happy would be to have never spoken of it, to be able to simply erase the possibility... the doubt... the what ifs. To erase the very acknowledgement of existence. It never happened, not the way we remember it. I’ll deny that to the end.

To be your North, South, East and West.

Or, perhaps I'm telling stories and you shouldn't believe me. Perhaps I never have been capable of truth. Tribeca's not a cup of builder's tea.

Encircle me, draw me close to you.

Maybe I wanted to believe it was true. Not an anomaly. Not a random burst of a few seconds of brilliant sunshine on an overcast day. To trust that honeyed words spilled over transatlantic lines were viscerally honest. That the depth of your voice was not a manifestation of the guilt brought on by mendacity.

You wouldn't have to learn in a house upstate. We'd need the room...

To not be a token, an amusement, a fixated fantasy. To believe that the faintest hope for a future is worth taking risks for, to be believed in, trusted - to be the only.

Make the seconds meld into months, to years. Make it happen. Do it.

Sometimes I think that I've given up on myself. That I've forsaken what I believe in. That I've let go too soon and held on too long.

All of it - including the fuck ups.

Deep down, the answer is no. She said you’re a fucking coward. Cowardice assumes that something is wanted and you are crippled by fear. That's not the case. It's not fear that keeps you. Posh birds are not cheap, and don't deserve to be treated as such. A simple, firm refusal to be the idle fantasy that you resort to when all other distractions have bored you. I am not a convenience, a boost to the ego.

I nearly walked away from it all, just for a moment. Just for the chance. I think I would have.

Stitching together depth and touch with pictures before they've faded.

Autumn in New York.

I won't be washing the dishes, I'll be washing my hands.

To just be.

Self preservation. To believe, but in myself. A comfortable existence without regret. Absolution.

It could be different.

I hope.