Distress

Dear God,

Please stop these nightmares plaguing me. I am a good person and I always try to be kind to people, even those I don't like. I am loving and giving, but as you know, I am very sensitive and don't cope well with bad situations. Dreams may not be real, but when you don't know you're dreaming, they are all too real for you, and can be far too upsetting to handle. So please, God, stop the nightmares.

This girl, this girl. I love this girl. I love her with all my heart. I was with her yesterday, this girl. I lunched with her, I cared for her when she was unwell. I insisted on travelling home with her so she didn't have to be alone in her sickness. I went to sleep in my bed longing for this girl to hold, to kiss goodnight, to make love to. This girl can be my all, if she is willing to be.

And yet my dreams betray me. They have this girl in the rôle she does not deserve to play - she betrays me, she performs fellatio on another man. This man is our friend. He holds her, he kisses her hair like I do. And I have to stand and watch. "It's not my fault," this girl says. "It just happened." But it did happen. And it happened in my dreams, and for that moment, my dreams are real.

I, being helpful, offer to go and get something they require. I come back, hoping it will resolve itself, hoping that she will accept my offer to continue our relationship, because I love this girl, despite what she has done. I return and they are staring, staring at each other, paying me no attention. "Damn it," I shout. Over and over and over again. And I collapse into tears, still in love, still ignored. Betrayed. Betrayed by this girl, in a rôle she does not deserve to play. In real life, she returns my love. In my dreams, she discards it.

I wake up, God. I wake up and I am shaking. Tears pour down my face; my breathing, ragged, heavy, uneven, desperate. All a dream, perhaps - yet, for the moments in which it happened, I was in distress - a distress with which I could not cope. I could not cope with betrayal again. Ay, me. It's not real, I know. But I hurt, I hurt from a hurt which has not happened, should not have happened. I should not have had the dream.

This dream, this nightmare, it takes place in my place of work. I am in this place of work, this place of nightmares. I am distressed by what I saw, what my brain forced me to see. I feel sick.

Please, God. Please, no more nightmares. No more betrayal. No more distress. No more crying at 5am.

Please, God.

Please.