you, by any other name

day one: you swore your lips touched but you woke up alone. the calendar on the wall says two thousand and twelve and you haven't lived in this house for years. the comforter on the bed looks vaguely familiar, and in your hazy sleep-state you think you once saw it in a store near your college. you didn't think you bought it. on the desk is a pair of glasses. they're not yours but they fit you perfectly, and the blurred edges of the world shift into sharp focus. a strange dream you had, of a different life. you will never know this but today you will take the first step to loving her. day two: this home is unfamiliar, but your body makes its way through the rooms on muscle memory. you find yourself barefoot in the kitchen, drinking orange juice straight from the carton in front of the refrigerator. outside the window a city bustles and on the fridge, a magnet holds a photo of you with your arm around another girl and a rainbow flag draped around you both. "don't you have class today?" a woman asks and you think it is your mother. "you'll miss your train." you nod and your head hurts behind your right eye. you feel like you're forgetting something. day three: this isn't so much a bed as a pod, like something from one of those science fiction shows you used to watch together. (no, that isn't right. that must be a hazy dream, a distant imagining of something from a history textbook.) there's a band around your right wrist and it reads in military time. every fourth second it blinks a green light, and you know you should never be awake this early. outside your window, stars pass by, and machines hum like crickets— you always thought crickets sounded romantic, though you never set foot on any land where they once dwelled. something feels off today. you dreamt of holding a woman's hand. no one touches anymore. this is not your memory. day four: the sky is green here. a city glows on the edge of the horizon and it beckons you like a moth to a flame. the sky lights up with aircraft and you should feel fear but you don't— it's been a strange week. you've been feeling off-kilter. your head hurts and your chest hurts and you want to walk to the city. you know there's someone waiting for you there, and you don't know how you ended up so far away. there are warm arms in the city, and you know you'll feel safe. there are wolves here, you think, and it feels like your thoughts are swimming through honey. you're holding a flare gun and your face is pressed to the ground. there is nothing you can do but get up and walk. day five: there is a carriage outside, waiting for you. or so you're informed when you wake up in a white shirt, pressed into an uncomfortable mattress, face buried in a pillow that smells like feathers. "you can afford to let them wait," the girl who woke you says, and she seems like someone who knows these things. her gray dress is tattered on the sleeves and her apron was probably white once. "it's important," she says, "to make them remember you're doing them a favor. you're better than this, i always said so, but when that ship sank, well. that's when i knew they wouldn't take no for an answer." the dress she holds up for consideration is heavy, a brocade full skirt. it looks like a wedding dress. it must be a wedding dress. the thought startles you out of bed. how could you forget this? day six: it's a siren that wakes you. the curtains black out your room completely, you know to count to fifteen, move slowly on silent stockinged feet. there's a gas mask on your nightstand and you grab it, padding away from the windows and downstairs, downstairs. you open a door and it leads to a basement which you feel should look more familiar than it does. you know this is safest, other than the shelters you think your neighbors erected in their gardens, but your heart clenches at the thought of being buried under a house's worth of rubble. you go down the stairs anyway, feeling your way along the wall. someone else should be here, you think distantly. who is she? where is she? is she stuck late in a public shelter and will you ever see her again, will you find her in this broken city or will you forever feel like something is missing? something is missing. someone else should be here, but you don't know if you should. day seven: you wake up encircled in soft arms, long hair brushing the back of your neck and your shoulders. it feels like you've been in a fever dream, like you're waking up with a dry mouth and sleep in your eyes. it feels like a light at the end of a long tunnel, like the sun peeking through grey clouds. someone smiles against your throat and you know you love her and she loves you. it feels, some days, like you have known each other a thousand times. like you have lived a thousand lives apart and together, like when you touched for the first time it was an answer to a prayer someone else prayed. you shift in her grasp. you want to see her face. you feel like it always escapes you. she's still smiling when you glimpse her. her lips are pink and kiss-bitten and oh, you think you dreamed of this once. why would you dream of something you already have? it's been a strange week. she's leaning in and you let her. you move forward to close the gap between you, and when your lips meet you think "yes, i think i will stay."