His hands grip me. In my dreams. He calls to me with his dialect, foreign like 85% Cacoa to the tongue. Bitter and saliva producing. HE brings me love and comfort like a pair of well worn slippers by the fire.

The dream ends. Our love is an illusion, like Houdini with slight of hand. Always one step ahead Wink. I wish for sleep where our love aligns.

Labile and volatile, HE taught me discipline, structure, and privacy. We hold silent conversations because he taught me there is solitude in peace. In music. In art. He taught me to savor Basquiat’s colors. The neon highlighting the grotesqueness of police violence on Black communities. My love taught me to read Jay-Z’s Decoded. He teaches and takes away.

In cycles of wake, silence. Words that cut and leave me bleeding by the warmth of the fire. “Jessie, you get treatment or I leave.” An once unconditional love became tight with conditions. Distrust. Emotional check-ins highlighting my state of content and varying states of burning contempt. Silence wages on. Who breaks first in the Great Divide?

I chase sleep for release. Release from pressures of life waiting for the diamond to be purged. Sleep is the conduit to dreams. In sleep, I find escape from my inner dialogue full of self-criticism. I chase sleep for peace.