Madam.

I’m sleeping all the time now. Twelve, fifteen hours when time permits. Mostly I don’t dream. But then when I wake up it all feels like a dream. A big long bittersweet nothing… I’ve left my world and am floating out in space. No, I’m not here anymore. The ground only hurts. When I sleep I feel no pain. And when I wake up I am nearly immune. Unconsciousness is a pliable mistress who craves my company if only to stroke my hair or count my eyelashes.
She knows the difference between experience and agony and she holds no bias against emotional sticks in the mud. Or so I’ve found.
It’s not a sin to sleep with the ghost of that which does not love you. It’s a hollow shell stuffed with remembrances of happiness, or of such I liked to call. Those who crawl on the dirt of Earth with billfolds full of currency and diplomas through their hearts think I am being wasteful with my time. They’d like very much for me to deny the childhood safety that was ripped away. Only because it would keep my mouth busy with blaming myself and keep more paper slips in their deep pockets. But I refuse. If I can not nurse my gutted trust on physical terms I’ll take to shut-eyed slumber again. My drowsy mistress does not care. She’ll welcome me home with open arms and cradle my head against her likewise sewn up chest. Sleep is not incapable of heartbreak.
Indeed she might have a million lovers in one night, but oh so few remain in the morning. We know what it is to lose love. She will never lose me. She even said last night she wants me to stay forever.
I’d much like to oblige, mind you, but as I think more of it, I do have much to do before I give her my hand forever. There are many things I would like to do before that time comes, down here on Earth. I am still accepted here, and I’d like to exploit that. And true, while there is so much pain here there is also beauty, and beauty in the pain – if one gifted with her kiss is unclouded enough to see that. Indeed before I was not.
I would make a habit of spending nights awake, mourning each hour and chasing safety. I’m done now. I’ve gone to pursue other glories, those hopefully without knives and trick questions. And when my time is done exploring earth, sea, sky and space, I will be able to drag my then frail body to her one last time. Only then will I rest on her for eternity.
“Only then.” She repeats in the moonlight some nights as she takes my hand gently. It reminds me not to run away from what I already have. Even though I am certain one day she’ll take me away. But not today. The sun is already rising.