I Left Something Behind in Nod

Every night in sleep, I journey to the Land of Nod. Where strangely, my senses suspend about— exists separately, yet a part of me. Like post-it notes on a cork-board— memories in sleep are not my own, but reminders of something long past. Time in Nod is like a dog without a master to hold its leash, behind and sometimes ahead. Will my longing find you in this land of glass streams and playful mists? Do you anticipate my steps? I can’t find the sun in Nod, yet briefly my focus finds gravity to question, why can I see so clearly? I can never find you pass the screaming brooks or the concentrated green landscape that binds Nod. Yet whenever I travel to Nod, I believe myself to be an expected visitor, since you always appear, when I forget to search. Patiently, you wait while I rediscover your tender smile, relearn your protective arms, and your brush-stroke collarbones. The familiar flush of heat along my skin as I remember to love this stranger, you once more. Even as I make plans to live forever in Nod, the once fair light becomes a mantle of light and violently obscures my new memories. It thrusts me from Nod, with an odd tingle at the corners of my eyes, that follows me day to year.