Nightmare

The cold is a premonition, a warning that I am about to drift into a familiar nightmare. I can taste it, smell it. Panic washes over me in freezing waves slowing my limbs even as my mind races, seeking some escape all the while knowing there is none. I have dreamed this dream before. With every breath I take the cold seeps in like poison turning my flesh to ice so brittle, so fragile, I know that I must shatter at the slightest touch. What terrifies me most is the intense beauty of everything in the dream: so brutally brilliant, so perfect that to look on it is painful. Somehow I know that I also have been transformed-all my flaws vanished-replaced with an unearthly perfection. The cold is unbearable, the beating of my heart painful, the fear that I will break apart intolerable. Tears, crystalline and shining freeze on my pale cheeks a testament to the sorrow flooding my veins, turning my blood to ice water. The tears are usually what breaks the spell and I find myself in my bed shivering, trembling, heart pounding. Although I am aware each time that this is merely a nightmare I am also deeply convinced that one day I will fail to awaken from it.