To Die Dreaming (Morir Soñando)

Hola Everybody,
I wrote the following a while back. It’s part of an unfinished short story that tracks the travels of two lovers. Morir Soñando is also a Dominican refreshment. In any case, I have a funny relationship to my dreams (none of which I ever remember) and I can say I write while dreaming... 

Morir Soñando

Dreaming men are haunted men.
-- Stephen Vincent Benet

… The thought of her beauty awakens me sometimes, from the middle of dreams I can’t remember. It’s not the image of her face, the softness of her skin, but just the sudden awareness of her total beauty -- that first strike before any of the details become clear -- that jolts me awake and leaves me longing on the broken shoals of my bed.

For a brief moment, I’m upset she’s not here with me, but the anger gradually subsides into longing, and I stand and pace, haunting the darkness of my room, thinking of possibilities. Gradually, I come to the awareness that there’s no reason for anger, only choices. I ponder all this for what seems like hours and it’s the thought of her beauty that makes me lie back on my bed, weighing me down so that I plummet through the thin fabric of wake and sleep and drown in the middle of dreams I don’t remember…

* * *

My name is Eddie and I’m in recovery from civilization…

The Desert

Hola mi Gente,

The following is an excerpt from a short story I never finished... started a while back. It follows the journeys of two lovers. It’s a repost.

The Desert

 

Photography: Thomas Sennett, Untitled, 1985

I find myself struggling: it’s a phase -- as if we’re driving through the desert of our early journey, and it is in the sands of my restless heart to which you make love. It’s the colors and tones within these barren passages that you court me, the reflection of the daylight between shadows, the dried parched terrain of this forbidden land -- dried mud and clay, your body now like a shimmering mirage of a long lost secret garden.

I’m struggling between frustration and despair, and I want to fight, or run, or at the very least to resist. Slowly, painfully, I let the colors bleed. Mile after desert mile, seemingly endless, with no horizon, I inch closer to the essence of you -- the very mud and clay of the Earth. You took me down into the clay, through your own uncovered soul, and I saw you for the very first time in the desert of our early journey and fell in love with you -- again and again

* * *

My name is Eddie and I’m in recovery from civilization…