Was it all a dream?

The events of the past four years now seem surreal and distant, like one of my prolonged fantasies. But the pain is too keen and too near for it to have been anything but real.

After the first few times, each time I welcomed someone new into my heart, somewhere in the back of my head was a little voice telling me it was another waiting game till this one broke my heart. And each time, I told that little voice to be silent and go away.

And each time, that little voice got to say, "I told you so" at the end.

It's all a waiting game. Waiting for the next one to come and make me open up my heart again. Waiting for him to convince me to believe again. Waiting for him to work his way past my defences again. Waiting for that next one to come and fill my senses, warm my cold world and draw me into his again. Waiting for the scent of the next one to drive me to olfactory delight, the sounds of him echo through my waking moments, the sight of him awaken my being with wild colour again; the taste of him intoxicate me each time and the memory of his skin linger on mine, again.

Waiting for the next one to come and rip my heart to shreds again.

I wrote this, my favourite piece of written word, on a small card some time ago, laminated it and gave it to him:

"Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly, because you tread on my dreams."
~W H Auden~

His response was to put it on a wallpaper filled with pictures of us and add at the bottom:

"Daphne & Kelvin
09.02.03 - always"(There's a story behind the making of this wallpaper. If I haven't told you the story of a certain blonde, ask me.)

I guess we both didn't know what we were promising each other then. But I'd kept mine to the end.