The Last Dream Before They Take Me

“I suppose it’s obvious that what was ignited when I loved you continues to burn. But that’s of small importance to you now, and that’s how it should be. Everything is in its place. The past rests, breathing faintly in the darkness. It no longer holds me as it used to; now I must reach back to touch it. It is night and I am alone and there is still time, a moment more. I am standing on a long black stage, with a circle of light on me, which is my love for you, enduring. I have escaped—or have been expelled—from eternity and am back in time. But I step out once more to sing this aria, this confession, this testament without end. My arms open wide, not to embrace you but to embrace the world, the mystery we are caught in. There is no orchestra, no audience; it is an empty theater in the middle of the night and all the clocks in the world are ticking. And now for this last time, I don’t mind, or even ask if it is madness: I see your face, I see you, you; I see you in every seat.”

― Scott Spencer, Endless Love

They tell me to forget you.

Say it wasn’t love, call it sickness.

An unholy thing we called sacred

because no one else could hear how it sang in the dark.

But what do they know

of how your eyes clung to mine in rooms full of voices?

Of the way you marked me with your name,

not with hands but with hunger,

the kind that leaves bruises no one else can see.

They hand me pills now.

Blue for morning, white for sleep,

a softer world where you never existed.

But I bury your memory like splinters beneath my skin,

carry you like a thorn-crowned god

through every fever dream they force on me.

I feel you moving in my bones,

a haunting in the marrow.

You loved me fiercely, didn’t you?

God, sometimes I thought it was more than me —

as though you loved the very existence of me,

worshipped me like how I worship you,

even though it was blasphemous and wrong.

You’d tell me you would have wanted me in every universe,

even in ones where it would be a crime,

and you were jealous —

jealous even of me being in possession of myself,

because you wanted to own me so completely

I would breathe and exhale only you.

I wouldn’t be anything but what you made me.

You crossed every line for me,

did things no one could imagine,

things that made people call you mad.

And you were my first love, everyone knew it,

and you whispered,

“Most people don’t know it, but so are you,

I have never loved a soul until you and never will for eternity

I waited for you all my life until I found you again

And even when we first met as children I knew it although I couldn't tell you.

Because we belonged to each other.

I was made for you.

I only exist for you.

I belonged to you."

And yet —

why then did you leave me?

Why did you fill yourself with so much anger for me,

wanting to rip me apart

when you once held me like I was the last fragile, holy thing left?

I loved you too.

I was devoted — still am.

Even when the world turns on me,

I keep fighting with your name in my throat.

But you — you look at me now with disbelief,

like you hate me as much as you once loved me.

And you can’t forget me either.

You just hate me now,

the way you loved me then.

And I see it —

you want to see me suffer for it.

You laugh at my tears

when once you would have wiped them,

and God, you would have kissed them off my face

like you were drinking rain from my skin.

I remember the way you’d watch me

when you thought no one else was looking,

eyes sharp, dark, possessive —

like you’d burn the world down

before you let someone else touch what was yours.

You spoke soft in public, but in the quiet hours

you tore me open with your mouth,

with your hands, with those aching silences

that said I belong to you.

You made me a promise once —

in a room that smelled like dying flowers and old rain —

that you’d never leave me in a world like this.

That you’d tear the sky apart with your bare hands

before letting them take me.

And so when they came,

I waited.

I waited with a heart so loud it sounded like war drums,

waiting for your shadow at the door,

for your voice like a storm breaking glass,

for the madness in your love to match mine.

But the door never opened.

And the silence was heavier than death.

Now they tell me it was a lie,

that you were afraid,

that you turned away.

But how can I believe them

when I still feel you in the spaces between my ribs,

when your name stains the back of my throat

like old blood,

when my skin remembers the shape of your hands

better than I remember my own face.

I see you in the dream.

Every night.

Standing by the window,

your face hollowed by moonlight,

eyes drowning in some unbearable tenderness

you’ll never say aloud.

You open your mouth,

and the words are always the same.

Wait for me.

But morning comes like a blade

and I wake to white rooms,

kind voices with cruel hands,

a world scrubbed of you.

And still —

I keep a corner of my mind untouched,

a room no one can enter,

where you still love me like wildfire,

like drowning,

like the last light in a collapsing universe.

Because it was real.

It was real.

I wouldn’t believe in your love unless I felt it —

how you were insanely in love with me,

the way you couldn’t look at any human,

only me,

like seeing me was your salvation.

Is that why you hate me so much now?

Because I couldn’t be the goddess you dreamt of?

Because I couldn’t be the one you saw me as?

Is this why you disappeared,

even though I know you loved me?

I know you loved to punish me too,

sometimes pulling on my hair until I cried,

so you could drink my tears,

wanted to taste the salt of my pain.

How you bit me for every tear you shed for me,

how you bruised me and admired those marks

on my body,

because you were hurt.

Is this your final punishment,

to leave me this way?

You always loved to punish me,

mine was only teasing —

but yours was much darker.

You left a scar for every word I didn’t say,

and for every word I did,

you made sure I never forgot it.

You wanted to break me,

but never completely.

You wanted me on the edge of madness,

wanting you back.

I don’t know what I did for you to be so obsessed with me.

You said I’m the kind of soul someone can be in love with forever,

for eternity —

but I never knew how I earned your devotion.

I teased you for it,

wanted you to want me even more,

and then you made me fall for you so deeply as well.

And then, after so many years,

you grew cold.

You loved me the same, but you hated me more.

You didn’t believe I could love you as much as you loved me,

even when I could cut off my limbs, my life, for you.

And now you’ve disappeared,

leaving me insane and lost,

as if you wanted to punish me all along

for every refusal I had made in all these years,

as if you held a grudge every time I put a hand on your lips

to stop you from kissing me,

teasing you —

as if you remembered every coy attempt to push you away

from devouring me.

You took it so personally,

wanted me punished and to want you just as much.

It’s such a dance between us —

push and pull.

When I push you, you pull at me,

towards you, locking me in your arms

and don’t let me escape.

And then you pull, and I drag your arms at your feet,

and we dance on and on,

this waltz that sometimes feels like heaven,

sometimes like hell,

still engrossed in each other,

whether out of love or hate,

intimacy or fear.

But now the music’s stopped,

and suddenly you’re gone,

like an invisible man,

and I’m on the floor crying,

and they surround me, confused,

because they never saw you —

or us — dancing.

And this —

this is my last dream before they take me.

I wish you came for me, to save me,

Although I know you won't.

For you are always there,

and you always leave.

But I am still waiting.

I don't know what for.

© 2025 Inaba Tarek