I've dreamed of you so much that you're losing your reality.
Is it already too late for me to embrace your literal, living and breathing
physical body
and to kiss that mouth which is the birthplace of that voice which is so dear
to me?
I've dreamed of you so much that my arms--which have become accustomed to
lying crossed upon my own chest after attempting to encircle your
shadow--might not be able to unfold again to embrace the contours of your
literal form, perhaps
So that coming face-to-face with the actual incarnation of what has haunted me
and ruled me and dominated my life for so many days and years
Might very well turn me into a shadow.
Oh equilibriums of the emotional scales!
I've dreamed of you so much that it might be too late for me to ever wake up
again.
I sleep on my feet, body confronting all the usual phenomena of life and love
and yet
when it comes to you--you, the only being on the planet who matters to me
now--
I can no more touch your face and lips than I can those of the next random
passerby.
I've dreamed of you so much, have walked and talked and slept so much with
your
phantom presence that perhaps the only thing left for me to do now
Is to become a phantom among phantoms, a shadow a hundred times more shadowy
than that shifting shape which moves and which will go on moving,
stepping lightly and happily across the sundial of your life.
Robert Desnos
