text: Bad dreams can’t hurt you. No matter how real they seem, you always wake up. Sometimes quickly with a start, sweating and panting in the middle of the night. Sometimes slowly, your eyes unfocus from the eyelid movie and come back to the world around you. The terror of the dream fades into a dull ache, fading away into the mist of memory. In my worst dream there were white plates, silver and cups ringed with baby blue lines, gleaming in the midday sun. Rainbows of flowers swayed gently at tables clothed in gold down to the feet making them seem to float off the ground. The cool breeze carried the lazy large clouds lingering in the glistening blue sky, rippling the water in the lake. The exuberance reverberated off the curved wooden pavilion with voices accented from all corners of the earth. The door opened. She stepped through the door carrying her own localized wind, curling and gusting in visible wisps. A head full of flowers, rooted around her neck and shoulders, climbing upwards into a crown reaching for the sky. Her skin reflecting a dark golden warm honeyed brown wrapped in a dazzling white with small strips of baby blue and lavender placed thoughtfully and practically.”Plain white is just too boring”, I remember her saying. Her smile pushed out from her glistening teeth to the corners of her lips and spread up to her eyes. The music swelled to her entrance and the gathered party hailed her with applause. The moment reminded me of the first time I turned the corner and walked through the doorway and saw her. Wearing blue overalls with a white shirt, she was sitting in the sun focusing on a book. The air swirled softly around her and I approached. “Um excuse me --” She looked up and slowly focused her eyes on me as I stumbled my way through the first spark, a stranger to her universe, a rogue comet meant to pass by but got trapped by gravity. We pushed on together through the void of those youthful years over late night chats, stolen kisses in the stairwell at Smiths, shared jelly buns gushing all over us, notes and letters passed between friends, quick touches between hawk like eyes watching us, secret rendezvous, tears, fears and trepidations. Locked in a spiral of each other's gravity now we reached out with soft touches at the heart, slowly uncovering more about that new world that had appeared in each of our skies. A ringing brought me back to the now with a jerk. Hues of dark purple and orange were pushing away the blue sky. Someone was tapping a glass, cheering for the kiss. She blushed and slowly turned. Her shadow followed, wrapped around her and invaded her local atmosphere to embrace for a kiss. I stood apart from the audience watching the scene of happiness around me as I gravity disappeared for me and I began to float away: a rogue comet, meant to pass through and now sent back into the cold endless abyss. The door had shut and vanished without a sound. But bad dreams never affect me, they’re just a flash of memory, the mind playing while you rest. High above the world I look into the lake reflecting the deep purple of the sky. I watched my water twin swirling, screaming and twisting silently as it floated away, waiting for the terror to fade to a dull ache, for the scream to turn into a yawn.