Status: :)
Don't Wake Me Up
of pretty sights and chandelier skies
You came to me
In seamless sleep
Slipped right in
Behind my eye
On the back of my mind
We swam a sea
Of pretty sights and chandelier skies
I swore I could feel you breathe
It was all so real to me
The light had slipped through the window
The morning ripped you away oh
You're waiting for me.
I'm late as always, but this time it's not my fault. Mother, normally a hot drink and bed before 10 kind of girl, stayed up late watching a documentary. It was something to do with World War Two and although I sat through all of it I couldn't tell you one thing about the battles or the war effort back in Britain. My mind was elsewhere. With you.
Words cannot explain how excruciating the wait was; I felt like a child the night before Christmas, like a starving man awaiting his first proper meal in months, the delicious smell wafting in from the next room, like someone in the waiting room of a hospital wondering whether the person they love is alive or dead. But she’s asleep now and I can make my exit: skipping the fourth step, dodging the cat and slipping out of the back door. She’ll never know I’m gone. I take one last look at the house and wish I could be saying goodbye to it forever but I know, just as I know that when I get there you’ll be staring at the sky with your hands in your pockets and muttering the names of the constellations to yourself, that when this night is over I will come back and slip into bed just before she wakes up and act like nothing happened.
I start off walking but before I know it I'm sprinting, cursing the distance between us, the miniscule amount of time it will take me to get to you still too long. The burning in my legs, chest, arms and the thought of you just beyond my reach make me feel more alive than I have in months and I let a bordering-on-hysterical giggle escape. For a few minutes it’s just me and the stars and the thought of you. I feel like the only person in the world.
But suddenly, there you are: doing just as I predicted and for a second I wish so fiercely that it was only the two of us left in the world that I could almost believe it. A car horn in the distance brings me back to reality.
I take advantage of the fact that your back’s turned to me and pause at the edge of the sand to catch my breath. It’s only the silhouette of the back of you but even this sight after so long is enough to set my heart skipping and my blood pounding. My fingers itch to touch you, to run through your hair and pull you closer so I can kiss the fuck out of you but I use them to straighten my dress instead as I try to comprehend that you’re actually there, that this is real. You’re standing barefoot at the edge of the sea, the water gently lapping at your feet. One of the legs of your jeans is rolled up in an attempt to stop it from getting wet but the other has fallen down and is skimming the wet sand. You haven’t noticed yet.
It will be the first words I’ve spoken to you in person in over a month and I want to surprise you with something clever or witty, something that tells you how much I love you and have missed you but my mind is empty of anything remotely meaningful and so I blurt the first thing that pops into my head.
"Your jeans are wet.”
You don’t even bother to look; two large strides and you're standing right in front of me, reaching out and grabbing my wrists to pull me closer. The smell of you and the feel of your hands on my wrists set my body on edge.
“Hey,” you say, slightly breathless and eyes shining, turning them so the insides face upwards and kissing each of my scars in turn. I close my eyes and lean in to you, tugging my hands from your grip so I can snake them inside your t-shirt and caress the scars just above your hips.
“Hey,” I reply, and before I can stop myself another giggle escapes me.
I expect you to smile at this - I’m sure that’s what you’re meant to do, you’ve always told me you love my giggle, rare as it is – but instead, face full of something that looks disturbingly like regret, you reach up and grip my hair and your forehead comes down to rest on mine.
"I'm sorry," you breathe. “I’m so, so sorry.”
And then I wake up.
Instinctively I reach over to your side of the bed, but its long cold and with a sudden clarity that brings with it nausea and a terrifying emptiness, I remember.
There’s a soft tapping at my door and I squeeze my eyes shut hoping I won’t have to deal with anyone. I want to go back to sleep. Back to you. They tap again, louder this time.
"Honey?”
It’s my Mother and she’s using the voice people normally reserve for fragile things. Broken birds, small children just on the edge of sleep, people who are dying. I clap my hands over my ears. I know what her next words are going to be but if I don’t hear them then they won’t be real, they can’t be real.
“If you don't get up now you're going to miss the funeral."
In seamless sleep
Slipped right in
Behind my eye
On the back of my mind
We swam a sea
Of pretty sights and chandelier skies
I swore I could feel you breathe
It was all so real to me
The light had slipped through the window
The morning ripped you away oh
You're waiting for me.
I'm late as always, but this time it's not my fault. Mother, normally a hot drink and bed before 10 kind of girl, stayed up late watching a documentary. It was something to do with World War Two and although I sat through all of it I couldn't tell you one thing about the battles or the war effort back in Britain. My mind was elsewhere. With you.
Words cannot explain how excruciating the wait was; I felt like a child the night before Christmas, like a starving man awaiting his first proper meal in months, the delicious smell wafting in from the next room, like someone in the waiting room of a hospital wondering whether the person they love is alive or dead. But she’s asleep now and I can make my exit: skipping the fourth step, dodging the cat and slipping out of the back door. She’ll never know I’m gone. I take one last look at the house and wish I could be saying goodbye to it forever but I know, just as I know that when I get there you’ll be staring at the sky with your hands in your pockets and muttering the names of the constellations to yourself, that when this night is over I will come back and slip into bed just before she wakes up and act like nothing happened.
I start off walking but before I know it I'm sprinting, cursing the distance between us, the miniscule amount of time it will take me to get to you still too long. The burning in my legs, chest, arms and the thought of you just beyond my reach make me feel more alive than I have in months and I let a bordering-on-hysterical giggle escape. For a few minutes it’s just me and the stars and the thought of you. I feel like the only person in the world.
But suddenly, there you are: doing just as I predicted and for a second I wish so fiercely that it was only the two of us left in the world that I could almost believe it. A car horn in the distance brings me back to reality.
I take advantage of the fact that your back’s turned to me and pause at the edge of the sand to catch my breath. It’s only the silhouette of the back of you but even this sight after so long is enough to set my heart skipping and my blood pounding. My fingers itch to touch you, to run through your hair and pull you closer so I can kiss the fuck out of you but I use them to straighten my dress instead as I try to comprehend that you’re actually there, that this is real. You’re standing barefoot at the edge of the sea, the water gently lapping at your feet. One of the legs of your jeans is rolled up in an attempt to stop it from getting wet but the other has fallen down and is skimming the wet sand. You haven’t noticed yet.
It will be the first words I’ve spoken to you in person in over a month and I want to surprise you with something clever or witty, something that tells you how much I love you and have missed you but my mind is empty of anything remotely meaningful and so I blurt the first thing that pops into my head.
"Your jeans are wet.”
You don’t even bother to look; two large strides and you're standing right in front of me, reaching out and grabbing my wrists to pull me closer. The smell of you and the feel of your hands on my wrists set my body on edge.
“Hey,” you say, slightly breathless and eyes shining, turning them so the insides face upwards and kissing each of my scars in turn. I close my eyes and lean in to you, tugging my hands from your grip so I can snake them inside your t-shirt and caress the scars just above your hips.
“Hey,” I reply, and before I can stop myself another giggle escapes me.
I expect you to smile at this - I’m sure that’s what you’re meant to do, you’ve always told me you love my giggle, rare as it is – but instead, face full of something that looks disturbingly like regret, you reach up and grip my hair and your forehead comes down to rest on mine.
"I'm sorry," you breathe. “I’m so, so sorry.”
And then I wake up.
Instinctively I reach over to your side of the bed, but its long cold and with a sudden clarity that brings with it nausea and a terrifying emptiness, I remember.
There’s a soft tapping at my door and I squeeze my eyes shut hoping I won’t have to deal with anyone. I want to go back to sleep. Back to you. They tap again, louder this time.
"Honey?”
It’s my Mother and she’s using the voice people normally reserve for fragile things. Broken birds, small children just on the edge of sleep, people who are dying. I clap my hands over my ears. I know what her next words are going to be but if I don’t hear them then they won’t be real, they can’t be real.
“If you don't get up now you're going to miss the funeral."
♠ ♠ ♠
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