.

In my dreams I am in a hotel by the sea.

From the window I can taste salt in the air, feel the heat of the sun on my skin. There is no sound except the waves lapping up onto the shore, in their fruitless efforts to drown the earth. They are whispering secrets to me, I cannot understand them but I am soothed. I am alone.

In my dreams I am in a hotel by the sea.

I try to imagine you there; I try to imagine that you are good company. That I am happy with you, brushing your hair or lying with your leg over my body, that sort of rough affection that I grew to love. The moment lingers in its perfection and then is gone, and I can’t decide whether it was better to have dreamed it at all, knowing that your absence will haunt me.

Loneliness becomes me; it is my most beautiful face. These days, it is my only.