Dream Love

I guess I know what romantic love feels like because I have dreamt about it.

In my sleep, I have found the arms of a partner so peaceful and satisfying that I enjoyed being hugged. I did not stiffen my neck or do an awkward half body embrace one hand free at my side the other hand patting my partner's back but hugged easily instead.

It was a dream so striking that when I remember it I can feel it on my body. I can feel hands wrapped around me whose palms do not create awkward hot spots where they fall on my back. I can feel my face pressed against a chest without the heat of my breath being boomeranged back at me to create the illusion of suffocating.

The smell was no smell but the best smell. It was not musty unwashed body and clothes that had been packed in a bag but the smell that soap leaves in the shower even after I have washed it down the drain.

This hug was a feeling of being comfortable without having to hang on too tight. I did not visualize the end of the embrace and being a person no longer held by someone's arms but the security of being two different bodies engaged in one action.

I do not recall the beginning of the hug. Squeezing arms did not mark the beginning of my life or the unifying of two because nothing changed. I did not need to change and there was no screaming sound in my belly that need put to sleep.

I did not move to my toes but stood squarely with my weight in the souls of my feet. Neither of us needed to be held up by this hug because we each could do that on our own. I’ve worked hard to do that on my own.

I liked the space between our feet because he did not step onto mine and I did not need to move mine to make room for his. Like imperfect puzzle pieces, one foot pigeon-toed to make room for the other.

When I am not sleeping I don’t really enjoy hugging or being hugged by men. I don’t like moving my head to one side and shifting my center of balance to my toes. I do not like the smell of other people in the evening and I especially do not like it when someone’s touch creates heat on my skin.

But, I liked it in my dream and I suppose this is what love would feel like.