Tonight I dreamed of you again. We ran into each other at a park, and tried to avoid meeting the other’s gaze for a while. Then we gave up, and looked at each other. There was tension in the air, and pain, and the dream let us know by giving us a purple aura. Then one of us, I don’t remember who, asked a single question — Are you doing well? — and the barriers fell. We held each other with the strength of years of hugs not given, and we cried the tears of years of secrets not shared. We cried and cried, for all the days spent apart, for the knowledge that this moment wouldn’t make the future different, for the hopes that maybe it would. Our faces were ugly and wet with cold tears, and we were making a scene in the middle of the park. The reunion was the happiest I’ve ever felt in a dream. The happiest I feel each time, because it has happened before. I’ve met you running away from a dragon, and we saved a little girl together. I’ve ended up at the door of your new flat, and you have shown me all the colourful décor and how happy you were in a place you could call your own. We’ve met in other times and places that I cannot remember, because I only remember that we met. These are all dreams that make me cry when I wake up.

But I wake up. And you’re not here. And I’m not there. I remember again all that happened, and how we went away. I remember the fights, the sides, the cataclysmic goodbyes. I remember the tears, the ones that were not sweet like in the dreams. I remember your reproaches, and I realize that you were right with some of them. I remember my reproaches, and I find out I still stand on some of them. And I wonder. I wonder if you’ve thought about me like this too. I wonder if, were we to meet again, the abyss would be smaller, if there would be a bridge. It’s a foolish thought, because I know I acted how I deemed best at the moment, and I’m sure you did too. I’m sad that it had to be this way, but I know it had to be this way. But I can’t help wishing that one day we will meet, and we’ll be different people, and we’ll forge something new again. But we probably won’t.

I think of you when I pray, and sometimes I can feel you over a wine libation. I carry pieces of you, and I hope you carry pieces of me too. I don’t believe you’ll read this, but if you somehow do, I’ll thank the gods for it. I want to say I’m sorry it went this way. And I love you, I still love you. And most importantly, I hope you’re happy, I hope you thrive, I hope you’re doing well.

Hugs, your friend from once before, your friend still during dreams.