By Alyssa Landau
I dream of a man who is fleeing from jail.
He is a composite of all my ex-boyfriends, but also someone I’ve never seen before,
Of course, he is running away with an accomplice, his lover,
She is not me, or anyone I know
but I follow their journey as though it’s my own.
They run holding hands through the countryside,
Squatting in any desolate location they stumble upon,
Making love in the grass, spooning calmly in the cobwebs of abandoned cabins,
Lying beneath the shadows of the soft moonlight,
They know they will be caught eventually, but they are free.
Their days are numbered, repetitive,
Filled with the unspoken knowledge that they are finite.
For now.
They keep running and running and running,
Until a brutish storm rolls in,
Lightning striking like a creature in the night.
They take refuge in a garden shed,
Beside a patch of greenery within a white picket fence,
clouds go gray roaring with rain,
The man picks a wildflower, juicy and silver,
Giving it to the woman, he tells her to put it in her hair.
When the squall subsides, they emerge in the light of day,
The plants have been destroyed,
Nothing but the beheaded stem remains,
windswept and waterlogged.
The wildflower is gone from her hair.
The man and the woman go into town,
He thinks he will get her something more permanent
They have no money, but there is a beautiful necklace
in the window of a jewelry shop
The man wanders in, picking up the necklace
He puts it in his pocket.
Can I help you? Asks the assistant.
At the center of the necklace is an emerald,
Hanging from a gold chain.
He puts it in his pocket and he starts to run.
He is thinking of her while he runs,
but he is running alone.
She is not with him.
It’s unclear whether days, weeks, or months have passed since he escaped,
But as the police handcuff the man,
He admits he can’t help himself; this is who he is,
No matter how far he runs, he can’t run from himself.
To be free would be too much for him,
To be free would be a dream.