Just This And No More

I dreamed. Of him, lying fully suited upon a faded chintz bedspread in a nameless, placeless hotel, and I, curled beside him in a nightdress, my knees tucked up, feet covered by its hem.

“This is the way the world ends.” he said, my hand tucked into his.

The curtains were open to the rising the sun, piercing the window glass like the angry arrows of an archangel.

“This is the way the world ends.” And he was right, of course, because the long conversation of night was about to be torn to shreds, light tattering its dense fabric.

I was sad we weren’t naked. That we hadn’t conversed without armor. Now it was over – this world of night. Dawn would turn us to mute and stately marble carvings like those that lie atop tombs in old cathedrals. Him in his suit and I in my nightdress, clutching onto his hand as if time would part us.

In the dream, I laughed at myself. A moment of lucidity at how I’d turned desire to monument and stone, instead of the lascivious fuckfest I should have dreamed of.

My subconscious is considerate of boundaries.