My memory is flimsy and I have trouble remembering basic tasks I need to finish throughout the day. However, I do remember my dreams in very specific ways, whether they were days or years ago. This specific dream lingers around like it’s a memory. 

I can’t remember some things about it, but I do remember this:

Clouds are cold. 

Like a marshmallow that never froze fully, icey to the touch but bouncy and soft. I know this because although the memory is foggy, I recall wearing a sweater around myself to keep myself from relinquishing to the elements. 

My subconscious did this for a reason, I feel.

Deep within the unexplored parts of my brain, those scenarios of false hope and shameful regrets are able to make their way to the main stage, under a grand spotlight.

They were there, of course, there in the clouds.

Above the clouds, there was a stadium. For what event, I don’t know. It wasn’t in my view at any point. 

I watched from a third person perspective as myself and Them sat beside each other. Wordlessly, yet so comfortably content as a pair. 

It wasn’t Their sweater; I had rejected that earlier because I didn’t want Them to be cold.

Anyways, the stadium was mildly full. Not every seat was taken, but it wasn’t quiet in the general area. 

I don’t remember the exact words spoken; the dialogue I would never hear slipped away so I didn’t hold onto its make-believe. However, it was that moment I realised that physical feeling slips into dreams and can be felt in the real world. 

I dreamed this dream in winter, so maybe that’s why it was cold. The only feeling I know I truly felt inside and out was the aftermath of those words spoken. 

They were leaving. 

They were not coming back.

The stinging in my heart or soul or maybe a migraine that struck from the overwhelming nature of this goodbye rang through my dream self, and it was felt when I awoke the next morning.

I tried to leave, to run as far and as fast as I could out of the stadium in all its glory, and no matter how far my feet took me I wasn’t fast enough. They caught me.

Grabbed my wrist and pulled me to look at them with no remorse or regret in Their eyes, only the look of acceptance.

The oxygen escaped me in an unpredictable pattern, but that look calmed me.

“It’s okay.”

“What?”

“It’s okay. I promise, it’s going to be okay.”

I was speechless, but They hugged me and for the first time in this dream, it wasn’t so cold even with the clouds surrounding us.

Waking up the next morning was hard because that dream was just that: a dream.

It was a brain crafting the perfect goodbye I would never receive. 

Sometimes even now, many years later, I wish that I would’ve never woken up.