You Kissed Me in the Place Where Only Souls Exist.

I just woke from a dream.

The kind that aches behind the eyes,

from recognition.

The kind that leaves you

wanting to close your eyes and return.

What if that’s it?

What if all time is collapsing

into itself,

thousands of mirrors folding inward?

If all time breathes at once,

then maybe

we are all just dreaming,

each other,

ourselves,

these lifetimes,

and sometimes

we wake up inside one

and call it grief.

Sometimes

we find someone we already love

and forget we are still dreaming.

You kissed my forehead

in that place where only souls exist.

And a bear stood watch

at the edge of the veil.

You were not afraid there.

You didn’t rush to fill the silence.

You met it,

like something sacred.

I wanted to be the version of myself

you would remember.

The one the stars still whisper about

when no one is listening.

Thin, maybe.

Young, unscarred.

Shaped like the women you follow in this world.

But I am not made of images.

I am made of smoke and memory,

the kind that clings to your hands

after the dream has faded.

You placed me outside the circle.

Turned your back on the thread

and called it madness,

as if forgetting were safer

than the fire of recognition.

As if the language I spoke

bent the world too far.

But I was never here to be safe.

I came to wake something ancient in you,

and it frightened you.

This lifetime is brittle.

Sharp at the edges.

Full of forgetting.

But I still carry the thread.

I still dream you in the shape of heat and water.

I still remember the way your soul pressed against mine

like a vow.

You will not remember me.

Not in this life.

Not as I am.

But somewhere, beneath your silence,

there is a flicker.

A tremble.

A gate.

And I,

I will not knock forever.

But I will leave the door ajar.

In case one night

you wake and remember

the sound of my name

before the world gave us mouths.