Smelled You in My Dreams

Being loved is a responsibility too many of us are not prepared for.  Sometimes I wish there was a license you could work for and acquire to prove that you were of age to be loved by someone, just like you are of age to buy liquor that gives you the same feeling anyway.  

He grew up on dirt roads and under scented rain, I wonder why he thought my skin was made of mansions and that I had eyes like corvettes.  Maybe he didn't realize that my brown skin was the dirt from the roads he ran over.  Maybe he didn't realize that the rain was just my tears overflowing.  Maybe he believed in me more than he believed in us and I wish I could have loved him better.  I was young back then.  I couldn't even form a complete sentence back then.  I knew the words but I had no purpose.  Having him was success enough.  Him loving me was enough of a finish line.

But I guess loving someone is not doing them a favor, it's making them responsible for being loved, requiring them to live to their own potential, demanding that they live each day without fear because they know that no matter what happens or doesn't happen, someone loves them.  

I dreamed him last night and do you remember the part in the song that says, "I smell you in my dreams?" That is true, by all the physics on Earth, it is true, even though it shouldn't be.  I smelled his neck as we embraced and I tiptoed just to get my arms around him.  It felt too familiar, felt too complete and I woke up wanting to drive to his house to wake him up to let him know that the dream we were both having is actually very real.  I wanted to bang on the door and walk over her shoes and shake him out of his sleep to tell him that she's cute, but she's not me and she was never chosen by God to love him like I do.  I wanted to tell her thank you for keeping him busy, for keeping him occupied, for taking care of him while I sewed the stitches of the wounds he left behind.  I wanted to show up and remind him that I'm not going anywhere, that even if he dies tomorrow, I will be in the front row of his funeral loving him till death do us part.  Because even if I was never good with my words, I was always good at loving him until the loyalty sprouted in my veins.  I will not be his victim or his ex but rather his Mary at the foot of his cross, never leaving his side even when they make a mockery of us.  Even when they tell me that his destiny is to die, is to be crucified, I will not leave him because this is the job that God gave me.  This is the seat God rested under me.  

I smelled him in my dreams last night.  I was too irresponsible to be loved back then.  Too wounded to be saved back then.  Too skeptical to believe that there was beauty in the fog.  Too ashamed to be transparent.  But I smelled him in my dreams last night and I know he keeps coming to visit me not because his bed is cold without me but rather because his heart is.