Slumber’s guest

You infiltrate my dreams each night,
So right and ethereal beside my sleeping self.
Even in unconsciousness,
A part of me knows that you shouldn’t be there.
That you can’t be there.
Because you are long gone,
Dust, in a vase, on a shelf,
You are the emptiness and shadows,
In our hollowed-out house.
Still, you stand silent, but not aloof,
Defiantly leaving paw-prints all over my mind.
Gone, once I wake.
When did morning grow so unkind?
In my dreams, you stick with me like glue. And I with you.
All I want is to see you safe.
Perhaps, if I can have you, keep you,
In the bubble of a dream-state,
Then you will re-materialise in your place.
A white entanglement on the leather chair. Of course, I traipse downstairs,
And you aren’t there.
I’m taunted by the cardboard urn,
I’ll dream again,
I’ll never learn.
We are taught: to love is to lose.
But dreams are stubborn,
And clutch you close.
You’ll blur around the edges with time.
Not tonight.
You’ll be brilliance again,
A little uncanny without your scent,
But still detailed enough,
To resemble my friend.