Robert Butler - Tabloid Dreams

And have I truly awakened, even now? I stand motionless in the center of this room. There is no sound, except the soft slip of the air. Perhaps I died in the very moment he did. Perhaps this is the purgatory I’ve been assigned to for my betrayal, a place to show me that the words must be made flesh.

I feel the weight of my clothes upon me and the burden of my breath. It is many years too late but I unfasten my dress and I slip from it and from all the layers of garments beneath, I shed them quickly, tearing at them, throwing them aside, and at last I am standing naked, and I call to him, I cast the words of my mind out to the distant sea. Look at me, I say.

I stand for a long while in the center of this room, praying that his spirit has found its way to me and is gazing on this vessel of my body, bright with lights and holding him.

I am no longer afraid. I move in my nakedness to this other room and I bend to the tub and by my own hands now I let the water rush in and soon this hard white sea is filled and I step in. The water is cold. It takes my breath away. No matter. I sit and it rises up my thighs, my hips, my sides, and it is over my breasts, and it is beneath my chin, and it ripples there, like kisses. He is nearby. I slide quietly beneath the water. I will find him and we will touch.