I awoke this morning with the distinct impression that in the act of waking, I had lost something.  Something precious, yet vague.  Something I cannot place, and do not know how to reclaim.  In the back of my mind lurks the after image of a dream.  A dream I no longer remember but desperately desire to relive.  I am aware it was only a dream, a fantasy created by my subconscious mind, but in it I experienced joy.  More than just happiness, it was the sensation of complete and utter peace and contentment.  I briefly touched what can not be put into words.

Now torn from such a blissful existence I can but ask myself why.  Why is it that the beautiful experiences and feelings now seem to be nothing more than a dream while my nightmares are all too real?  Every happiness that I’ve known seems to be nothing more than a mirage.  An illusion as intangible as it is beautiful.  A dream that in a moment will be stolen from me by the cold and unforgiving hand of the "real" world.  Yet the pain and hopelessness which haunts and torments me relentlessly is never seen as anything but reality.  I cannot believe that I will wake from the nightmare as I do from my dreams, for it has never before happened to me.  Pain, loneliness, uncertainty... these are the constants in my life.  Yesterday, today, and tomorrow, these are the feelings which haunt me, either as a crippling weight on my soul, or as a nagging feeling in the back of my mind that something just isn’t right. The dreams of joy, love, and peace appear but briefly in my life before being whisked away in a sea of troubles. I exist in a state of rebellion against the nightmare of reality, ever longing and searching for the sweet embrace of the dream I fear will always elude my grasp.

To die, to sleep, to sleep, perchance to dream...
aye... that’s the rub.
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come...