Before the goodbye

Again? Not again? My body trembles. Desperate to release the intense emotions building inside. I blink rapidly. Fighting back the tears that I feel welling up in my eyes. Not again. I softly whisper into the dark room. My voice barely audible. As if to convince myself. As if to convince these four walls. That it was just a dream. A figment of my imagination. A whisper carried away by the wind.  A moment so intangible. It never truly existed. Except that it did. 

I turn to my right, glancing at him, hoping the quiet sniffles won’t wake him. What a beautiful man I think as I take in his silhouette against the faint shadows of the room. Inside out. My chest tightens. This probably won’t last forever either I think to myself. I feel the ache of premature grief rising in me. The kind of grief that doesn’t wait for a loss to happen. The kind of grief that arrives before its time. 

I grieve what is. He is so gentle with me. He is everything I ever wanted in a man. Except how he leaves his shoes and socks everywhere in the house. I smile a little as a tear rolls down my cheek. I already miss him. I grieve what might have been. We already have plans to start a family in the coming year. Mini hims. Mini mes. This is exactly what I always imagined my future would look like. Is it me or the air has become more thick and hard to swallow? I bury my face in my pillow. Overwhelmed by shock and confusion. Is it a warning? Or. A fate I cannot avoid?

All this because of a dream. A mere dream. A disturbing, relentless dream. A cruel mockery of my hopes and desires. I close my eyes and pray to God, the words barely forming but carrying the weight of my soul. Please, not again.

When it did happen. When the nightmare bled into reality. A couple of months later. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Hehe. It was as if the universe had whispered the truth to me in advance. Daring me to hope anyway.  Planning a future I knew would never happen. Hoping that God would answer this one prayer. He didn’t. And it hurt. 

I sit here writing this. Reflecting. Asking. Do I want to try again? Do I want to let you in? Let you consume me? Touch the parts of my soul and body no one else has? Trace my curves with your eyes? See where the hope ends and the fear begins? Or are you another dream waiting to come true? A nightmare dressed as possibility. Lurking. Waiting to become my reality? I wonder. Is it worth it? Should I risk it? Or. Is this where I stop? Where I hold myself back from the fall that feels too familiar? Too painful? A fall before the goodbye.