But I Woke Up
Last night I fell asleep to deep breaths
and distant melodies
and the worry of tomorrow pressing against my chest
like a sleeping immovable cat,
but I woke up this morning with a smile on my face
The same smile as on the sand, watching the waves with you,
where everything that was happening
was all that had or would ever happen. Trapped
inside a bubble world, but not feeling trapped at all,
I felt free. I’d had a dream
you were next to me.
I know you weren’t there really,
but it seems I’ve memorized the things
that stand out about you,
to me,
though I can’t name them now, they are somewhere
lodged in my brain—
because it felt as though you were there, flesh and bones,
soul and insecurities—
I could feel your warmth. I could say something,
and you would feel my words radiating off of me
like sunbeams, like shooting stars–
making their way to you,
and when they arrived in your galaxy,
you would respond with the same kind of force,
the same laid-back urgency, as if
we both knew it was a dream, that it would end
in waking up,
but we just wanted an everyday conversation—
not about the world spinning below us,
or the moon—or the sun—
Isabella Arenas is a senior at The University of Redlands, CA, majoring in creative writing. Her fiction has been published in The Redlands Review. She enjoys lyrical poetry and thinking about her fictional characters off of the page.
The Albion Review 