An Open Letter To Flaneur

Tonight, like so many recent nights, I woke up in an abyss of insuppressible tears. My limbs were trembling. My teeth were uncontrollably grinding. My heart was slamming, banging, and crashing in my thoracic cavity like a deranged man locked up against his will. I couldn’t breathe.  Cold beads of sweat lingered down my body as I scavenged for the bottle of Xanax I accustomed myself to keeping beside my bed.  I placed the peach-colored pill under my tongue and reclined my head back to the nearest pillow. A bitter taste of metal radiated through my oral cavity as the pill melted into the sea of saliva slivering down my esophagus. I took a deep breath and rolled myself into the fetal position. A dream haunted by you loudly chimed like lonely church bells through my mind. I couldn’t help but play it over and over through my mind:

We were at short sand beach of Oswald West State Park. The wake-up calls of the seagulls reverberated from Neahkahnie Mountain to Cape Falcon as dawn transcended over smuggler’s cove.  A fusion of campfire, evergreen, and morning’s dew drifted through our nasal cavities as we sat eye-to-eye near the shore, never once drawing our attention away from each other. Tears began to fall from my eyes. You cradled my face in your hands and pressed your forehead on mine and whispered repeatedly, “Be here now.”