Drawn from a dream like beer on tap.

So I was at the bar last night...

... and I wished I had never woken from the dream, a dream I dreamt of the most beautiful words spoken to a girl, tender and raw. I woke, and I wept for the loss of the beautiful fantasy I had not known was false, not while I dreamt.

"Now that we're together, like we were always going to be."

"Don't ever tell me you're not coming home to me."

"Fuck 'em all. I want you."

The feelings were real, I swear, and I awoke laughing in joy or bitter self-mockery, painfully aware of the falsehoods my subconscious cruelly spun, dragging along like a thread through flesh, the pain eventually breaking into unromantic, not-crystal tears, as though my vision wasn't bad enough without my glasses, and dissolving, finally, into forgiving dreamless sleep.

The smoke and the fumes from alcohol poured, foam skimmed off the drawn beer, must be getting to me, because now I feel the gentle beat, inside, joining with the drums on speaker, no longer empty or hollow, filling up with sound and sugar and the perfume of the person next to me. And now the only blurring of my vision is from the candlelight, diffusing gently through the haze. Time seems empty, marked only by the number of drinks, and how many movies have been played, but that becomes harder to keep track of. But always someone grounds me still, preventing me from drifting away, blowing apart like so many bits of ash, with a gentle touch to the elbow and a kind inquiry. And no one knows. But I tell myself they would care if they did.

Tomorrow I return, seeking once again the temporary loss of time, but not of self.