Casey Gilfillan

I noticed you first, standing with your arms in the sky, your face glowing bright. You were there in the center, surrounded by stuff and matter and nothing that I took note of. It was a darkness of space, a void of capacity, and you. I felt my feet and the ground pull me closer, the joy of seeing you like a searing stake plunged deep in my chest. I reached out as you reached up, flailing your arms and motioning with urgency, mouthing something that I could not quite make out.

The stuff, the warmth. It was not inside my chest lacerating my heart. It was all around us, an uncontainable poison; licking each surface into distortion; irreparable to our familiarity. I reached out, you were no longer there but further down, jumping up and with your arms raised then down on your knees trying to scream and mouth something unsayable. The flames grew and began to occupy more space than the sky, swallowing it all and leaving nothing. You were further and further away, you were no longer waving your arms.

It is this cognitive subversion that becomes me, for I am left only wondering, with a handful of questions that I will forget by the middle of the next  day. Where were you leading me to, in that nightmare I can’t entirely rule out as a dream?