"Michiru?"
A thunder roared. I woke up with a start and instinctively reached for you, still half-asleep. Your side of the bed was empty. The futon felt too big without you. It took my mind a minute to clear up and grasp the reality. The dream had been too real. They all were lately. I could feel you right next to me, your warm skin on mine as we dozed off under the blankets, although I had never met you in my life. Well, in this life anyway.
In a different life we were lovers, partners, friends, once. Much more than those mere words could ever convey; we were each other's world. Two parts of a whole. Mind, body and soul resonating as one. It was the kind of love people talk about for centuries and it was ours. It was real. It was beautiful.
I got up cold and sweaty. The draft coming from the closed window made me shiver. The shutters were open, but I didn't want to get wet closing them. Instead, I added another blanket to my bed. No amount of layers would make the cold in my soul go away. That was something I had learned first hand since the lucid dreaming began.
Thirst burned my throat. I went down to the kitchen for a glass of water, gulped it down in seconds and wanted some more. Just like those dreams of you, I thought. They were the most comforting experience in the universe and still left me unsatisfied, lonely, anxious. Craving for more of something I never really had to begin with. It didn't make any sense in a logical way.
Knowing for sure I'd eventually meet you someday, that all those bittersweet dreams would become the most wonderful memories any couple can have, would have been enough to calm me down. Facing every day alone wouldn't be so terribly hard if I knew there was you at the end of that lonely road to transform my meaningless life with unconditional love and shared complicity.
What terrified me was the uncertainty of it all. I had those dreams I instinctively knew had been real in the distant past. I could hear the wind speaking to me; calling, beckoning like a mermaid does a sailor, asking me things I didn't truly understand. There was enough supernatural in my life to accept the past life theory as true. But what if it was only me that reincarnated? What if, for some reason you had stayed dead, unable to reach me in this life time?
After feeling you mine albeit in the realm of dreams, how was I supposed to go on living indefinitely? How could I get up in the morning without your love now that I had known the touch of your skin, the warmth of your smile? It seemed too cruel and lonely a fate for me to willingly surrender to it without a fight. I wanted to fight, I wanted to fight for us, to save us from never becoming "us" to begin with, but how?
I could still smell your perfume upon waking sometimes. Knew the exact shade of your sparkling blue eyes; the music in your laugh. I knew every inch of your body so well, I could draw it with my hands... by hart... with my eyes closed. I could even feel your face nuzzling my neck, yet I didn't know who you were or where you lived; nothing that could lead me to you. All I had were shattered memories of a past life and an all too real feeling of completion, a sense of belonging, of being home that just disolved into thin air the second I woke up every morning.
How can you possibly want what you don't know? Miss what you've never had? Long for what does not exist? How can you need it more than air, have it violently stolen from you if it was never yours to claim? And still, knowing that I've met you once and we lived the most sublime love story in the universe, is so incredibly fulfilling it overwhelms me. Pride and joy wash over me knowing I was lucky to have shared such precious moments with you and even luckier to have a chance to relive them in my dreams.
Emotions like that can get addictive very soon. From the very first time I remembered our life together, I couldn't eat or sleep or breathe without my mind going back to you at every turn. Everything brought you back to me, from a beautiful painting to a classical tune, or the color of the sea at dawn. Your perfection is such, nothing and no one can compare to you, my love. Living without you after knowing your love is like facing the crudest of winters in rags. There is no rest for my soul without your tender smile, no sleep without your head on my chest, no life without your hand in mine.
God really has a sick sense of humor. I went back to bed, but sleep wouldn't come. You were as elusive in them as in reality; no more than a mirage. The ghost of happiness past, forever haunting, taunting and turning into nothing the second I tried to hold on to you, to my sanity... my Michiru.