Tremors when your dreams are haunted by a boy
familiar stranger.
His clothes are torn, wrapped with a cigarette-smoke cloak that blurs his face and clouds your lungs
and suddenly your breath comes short, you frantically assess
how your ruin emerged from some opening that you forgot to stitch shut
seeping into memories you thought you’d laminated
put away for good.

He sees you and he doesn't.
His eyes are unfocused, but you can see yourself in their reflection (so small)
you know it.

Tremors when you’ve shaken your heart out like a linen sheet,
washed and dried and steam-ironed it with fervent desperation and still particles of dust cling
little stowaways
each a monument to a failure.
Surprises, all of them
ice water snaking down the back of your neck
shivers.

Tremors when every dream is a minute betrayal
glazed in hues of honey that taste of morning dew and
and you're sure that the pressure of his hand is a promise warmer than anything you'll ever know
even the smell of freshly cut grass.
It takes a while to silence the humming in your heart upon arising
although if prompted
you'd hiss that gold is not your color
and love is an ruse devised by the foolish.

Your voice is loud, you flaunt the match
and yet you are never brave enough to set the whole thing ablaze.
That one perhaps hand is tucked under your pillow
and the rest curls to fit it,
inconsequential.
He lives in the space in-between,
shines all the brighter for it.

Now you're standing next to him because this is the only way,
with void sitting low in your lungs and "wait" pulsing like a hymnal.
The inhale and exhale and constant haze is a slow rhythm that neither of you feel anymore
but you're so grateful,
honest.

Tremors when you turn and realize
he's gone.
Or rather, he was never there to start, trick of the light
refracting off the mirrors in your own mind,
that the absence of him was always more palpable than the presence.