This is Not a Poem

I had that recurring dream again last night;
the one where I find myself in the dimlit
streets of some seedy, shadowy metropolis,
where unremarkable phantoms float past
on bike, and on foot, looking on in passing
as if they know me, as if I've been there.

Only this time it was different. I knew it.
Never were the streets so dark, shadows
so long that they smothered the city blocks.
Two girls rode past on bike, staring back
momentarily with hollow eyes, faces
expressionless as they drifted onward.

 And this time I felt different. I recalled
the scene to come, as I began walking
down a long, empty avenue. No cars.
No lights. Just alleyways on either side
stretching into infinity. I'd seen it before.

And so I began to run. I felt labored
breaths and the pound of my heart rate.
I could feel the cold night air and smell
the stale city musk surround my body.
And as I knew they would, out came
the muggers who had repeatedly caught
me unaware in my thoughtless reverie.

But I was prepared. The phantoms
chased me down, as they had a hundred
nights before. But my feet ran some
path they already knew and I leapt over
a low wall, escaping my pursuers,
landing on the lawn of a house.
It was Her house. My approach
was measured, slow, hesitant.
But I felt a certain calmness knowing
that She was there, inside, and so I knocked.

J. answered and I stuttered out three words,
then three more, and I cried because the welling
of emotion took over, within and without the dream.
She kissed me. I kissed her back. I felt complete.

And then I woke up into the pressing night,
stared at my cell phone, the time reading 3:14.
Loneliness crept in. The poorly mended heart
ripped jagged, jagged, jagged.

I want to tell Her. I can't. She won't accept it.

Do not dream.