Laughing Medusas

When the night's quiet creeps in and I have only my thoughts to distract me, I hear them. Whispers, ephemeral shards of you.

My memories are pleasant reassurances on hopeful evenings. My memories are painful ruminations of almost and not quite in hollow twilight hours. I dream of moments that never were. I feel caresses we didn't share. I taste kisses I yearned to take. But I would never steal from you.

The girl you saw in me, the one nobody else believed exists, misses you. She longs to hold you, to take you, to keep you. She dares to dream, but I do not dare to act.

All is not lost, they say.
Your time may yet come, they tempt.

I have neither the strength nor the desire to refute them. Instead I submit to them, as though they were you. They seep into my skin, kiss my troubled thoughts, calm my anxious mind, lead me into dreams.

And I sleep peacefully in their embrace.

~Asherah