I Woke Up At 3:43 AM Wanting To Tell You I Miss You

I love this time of year. Most people complain about the days being shorter, how early the night paints the sky in raven, blue, and violet colors, but not me; I feel more alive when it’s dark. The weather is as close to perfection as it will ever get in Texas, at least for me. It’s cold enough to have to put on a jacket, for it to chap your lips, to numb your toes if you stand outside too long, cold enough you shouldn’t walk out with your hair wet, but not arctic like it gets up north.

Around this time of year, I become a little more disenchanted with my solitude. It transforms into something that feels a lot more like loneliness, something that hurts just a little bit. It seems like everything I touch, everything I inhale, everything that makes contact with my skin, with my mouth, with my mind, is infused with nostalgia. For what was, for what wasn’t, for what could be, for what is yet to be.

It’s also always around this time of year that I notice my dreams becoming more vivid, that I wake up remembering them in accurate detail, like they were just events from the previous day.

I woke up at 3:43 a.m. last night. The spray for deep sleep still fresh on my cold pillow. Lavender, patchouli, chamomile, camphor, and lemongrass invading all of my senses. Still, it felt like it was only just you I had been touching and smelling. My treacherous fingers fought my urge for pride and wanted to text you to tell you I miss you.

I’d just woken up from a dream of you.

I do that often, you know.

You were stroking my hair, moving your fingers down to my neck and my shoulders and remarking how soft my skin is. You were saying my hair was still wild, still so big, still so beautiful after cutting it. You asked me if I really wasn’t aware of how sexy I was. I looked at you and did that thing where I just smile and say “kiss me.”

I’m always thinking about that, you know. At any given moment, whether I’m seated beside you, or whether it’s been weeks since I’ve seen you, I am thinking about kissing you. I want to put my mouth on yours as I sit here writing this, I wanted my tongue to dance with your tongue when I woke up last night, and I wanted to suck on your lip even inside my dream.

I don’t know where we were. It was somewhere unfamiliar but that felt a lot like home. That’s what it feels like when I’m with you, you know, like maybe that’s what your hands and your arms could become. It’s what your eyes scream when they look at me. But then there are times where you forget about me and it feels more like maybe you just want to fill a vacancy when you’re bored like maybe you look at me and see more of a hotel suite. It hurts.

But in my dream, there you were, looking at me the way that makes earthquakes of my legs, lightning storms of my insides, and melts my skin into candle wax. And I was sure again. I pulled away from your kiss and said: “This is all I ever really wanted, you know.” What I meant by that was the kind of love my mother always said she hoped for and prayed for for me. The kind of love she wanted me to have if I couldn’t have anything else. I don’t believe in god, I don’t believe in fate, but I do believe in the magic of that kind of thing.

I believe there’s something here. I believed you when you said there was.

It was just a dream, but I could feel that kind of thing. That kind of magic. That kind of love. The kind that feels like you’re always carrying around hope like a birthmark. Like safety is always in your back pocket. I could feel myself wearing warmth the way I wear my grandmother’s ring. I could feel that I’d never have to write about anything that wasn’t light again.

I don’t want to feel this way. I am afraid of it. I promised myself I’d never feel anything with even a slight resemblance to love again. I’m afraid of anything that would mean I’d be giving someone power to hurt me. The truth is you already have it. The truth is you already are.

One of my favorite movies growing up was Practical Magic. There’s this part where Sandra Bullock’s character as a little girl performs a spell to ensure she’ll never fall in love. She asked for a man with one eye green and one eye blue. I made up my own spell when I was ten, but unlike her, I wanted my prince. See, even back then I had a thing for bright eyes, and in my spell I mentioned a beautiful man with green eyes. No pair has ever moved me or touched me in places so deep and obscured in me quite as yours.

Neon eyes I can’t stop dreaming about.

When I was thirteen, a fortune teller told me about great love and a pair of green eyes who’d change my life. Maybe it’s all coincidence. But I can’t help but wonder why I’ve come across yours. I can’t help but wonder if she was speaking of fortune or warning.

You’ve gotten under my skin.

I’ve tried cleansing myself from every thought of you. I’ve told myself to let it be. I’ve said you’re not worth my energy or my time, that if you want me you’ll come and get me. I’ve drank and danced and flirted with other men. I’ve taken baths with special oils and herbs to banish you. I’ve performed rituals and spells and I still can’t get you out from all the places inside me you burrowed yourself.

I still can’t stop dreaming of you.

I can’t stop writing about what it’s like when I hear your voice and when I see you, about what it could be, how I don’t look for the stars anymore because when you’re with me you light up the whole room.

I don’t want to feel any of these things for you.

I want to fall asleep and see anything and anyone else. I want to lay in bed with my hands between my thighs and see someone else’s face.

I just can’t stop dreaming of you.

I’m standing with my feet in the sand, wanting nothing but to feel the kiss of the ocean, and like the moon, the tides keep coming and going as you please.

I’m not sure you deserve for me to think of you this way, but I’m not sure there’s anything I can do to stop myself.

If you meant it when you said there’s something rare here, then come wash away my footprints from the shore, come and submerge me and swallow me whole. Take me away to somewhere only you and I will know.

Even if it’s just for a little while, remind me, don’t let me forget.