Seven nights ago, in a half awake, half asleep stupor, I think I called out your name, because I was scared, and I was tired of being chased around in my nightmares all night long. And it was a cry for help, definitely, and I was half-awake, and I was half asleep, but my mind said all of me was with you, and I would wake up completely, and you would be there, holding me, kissing me on the forehead, telling me everything is fine.

And I woke up shivering and sweating at the same time, the sheets stuck to my thighs, and a breeze blowing through the open window. All was silent except the hum of the electricity through the walls, and the half-lit room by falsified light from the outside showed me that it was just me here and only me, and that it had been me all along.

I'm not even sure if there were ghoulish things in the night chasing me around my subconscious. Something tells me there wasn't, because you weren't there again, and that's the real nightmare, and I feel like I'm still in it.

I pulled my pillow tight against my chest and clenched my fist and supressed a scream. 'I'm so sick of this earth-shattering emptiness' is what I didn't scream. 'I hate myself for losing everything that was important to me', I didn't scream. I didn't scream that I just wanted a deliverance in the Creedish Death Cult since of the word.

I woke up again only six mornings ago. 5:45 and the sun was just rising and my lips were still mouthing your name. I'm not sure how I keep getting out of bed everyday. I sure as hell don't know why.

You told me how you were suffering through insomnia and it gave me random flashbacks of when I was too --still am. Upset, sometimes crying out of frustration, always unable to sleep, occasionally curled in a ball wondering why my stomach always felt like an erupting volcano -healing factor or no.

(And we've grown up so much since then, haven't we, you fucking crybaby)

And I would just turn over and over and tangle myself in thoughts and sheets --so much that you couldn't tell which was which any longer, because they all just ended up tired and frustrated. And everything was just clockwork in the most serious way. Watching digital numbers gain a few bars, lose a few bars. Watching big hands move and being eclipsed by small hands and moving on again, around and around. I just couldn't feel anything during the day, because the day wouldn't turn into tomorrow fast enough.

And five mornings ago, I was running through some trails in the woods out behind the mansion, and there were flowers that smelled pretty, and woods that creaked in the wind. There was a lake that would correctly say your name if I rented a plane and wrote it in smoke, backwards, across the cyan sky.

I watched the sun rise slowly, preparing myself to four more days of missing you. That's the plan; and when you come back, and when I see you, and hold you close, and pull out my notes detailing exactly why you are the most beautiful, spectacular, perfect person in the entire world; when I'm telling you how no one else will ever be you, could ever be you; when I'm telling you that you are my forever factor in 500,000 words or less, I'll describe my perfect Alaskan Sunrises. How beautiful they are, and how the sky is a million different colors that even Crayola couldn't dream of. You'll understand too, because we understand each other. We compliment each other, and we complete each other.

Three days until your return, and my only true regret in life is that I never realized all of these things about you before. Maybe I was blinded, blinded by all of the good, which you radiated off of yourself like waves in my direction. Nothing like you, nothing this pure and *perfect*, had ever crossed my path before. So I denied it, choosing to block it all out in the fear that I would one day wake up, and it'd all be gone. You'd be gone.

I took up with Jeanie, and that was the worst mistake of my life. And I've made so many, and I know I don't deserve you, but I'm greedy, so damn selfish. My eyes opened and I saw everything that had been staring me in the face this whole time.

You weren't a dream, but you *could* disappear. Too bad I had to learn that the hard way.

Two more days, and I have even taken to wearing a watch lately. Since you left. And the clock seems to always go so extremely slow. Nothing is ever fast enough waiting for you, and nothing is slow enough when we are together.

You're back now. And nothing describes the way our lips congregate and convene, a divinity unlike any other I have ever felt. Every time our bodies entwine, pretzel in each other's warmth, I embark down a road of enchanting wonder, my own Pilgrim Progress, if you will. Certainly finding in you a beautiful unforeseen heaven, where the streets aren't paved in gold, but laid in the harmony of our romance. One so firm-rooted in love and need and commitment, one so devoid of hurt, fear, or the lecherous fascination that creep within both, that I reconsider my stance on a God, as no other could produce something like my Marie.

Our conversations surely appear to be a lingual wall only we can surpass in a natural understand. I would tell you, "I really believe we are shedding boundaries," but you already know. You see the crooked mold of almost youthful lust and the growing tree of a forever love. You see the disintegrating stereotypes of an unconceptualized ideal relationship and see us for what we truly are – lost without one another.

We have sliced our hearts in half and traded pieces, sewing them to our original ventricles and replacing the new creation back in our respective ribcages. We hold and protect each other, give each other life and renewal, hope and strength, and I love you more deeply than I have ever loved anyone before to my knowledge of memory. This is the incredible woman I'm going to spend an eternity and beyond with. This is my forever factor. This, ladies and gentlemen, is my precious and beautiful Marie.

And now I am back at the lake behind the mansion, near the edges of the spirited woods. Inhaling the deep scents of flowers that remind me of the sweet aroma of your gorgeously soft hair; I sit on a rock and put my feet in the water and tell myself I'm never going to lose something important to me again.