It was only a dream, a shadow of some nocturnal set of neurological signals
That painted a vivid picture in my mind’s eye and broke its way into my reality
An unexpected encounter with a person from the past, a tearful embrace
Warm rivers of salt flowed down both my and her eyes for a second
Then it was gone, a transitory combination of longing and loss
And for that moment there was a joy I didn’t know I had missed
And this unreal moment composed in the subconscious pushed itself forward
Shattering the sense of satisfaction with the reality I had constructed for myself
It is shocking how something so ethereal can subjugate the corporeal reality
As I would spend the next day trying to grasp onto that feeling again
Dissatisfied with the business and coldness of what had previously satisfied
But it was only a dream, a flash, a feeling, a reality that I might wish was possible
A dream that wouldn’t return in subsequent evenings, nor would any others
Yet, for days it journeyed with me in this life I live haunting it with its whispers
Jealous for my attention, unwilling to set me free from its enchantments
But eventually even these nocturnal longings fade away in the light of days and weeks
Yet, perhaps somewhere in the night they wait to shatter our realities
Highlighting the dissonance in the life we seek and the life we live
Upsetting our easy acceptance of the sacrifices we make in the land of the living
This is the danger of that nocturnal world that far transcends the nightmares
For perhaps it is those moments of fantasy where we develop this unrest
In the world we walk through with our eyes now opened through the world of night
Neil White, 2014
Sign of the Rose 