Imaginary Lover

In my imagination each night I go to sleep folded around the slight, smooth form of my lover.
Her relaxed breaths lull me, and I meditate to the rhythm her trust implies.
Her softness tantalizes me, like a favorite dessert that cannot be consumed or known.
Each urge to shift carries the weight of disturbing her sleep,
and yet my skin needs new stimulation periodically
Proof that she is there.
Which she isn't.
Proof that she could be.
She can't.
A pillow fails. The blankets curled between my knees fail.
My heart fails, my spirit fails, my awareness, memory, imagination and will all fail.
Sometimes she is the same woman for days, or weeks, or moments.
Sometimes she is famous, sometimes faceless.
Always, she is elusive. Ephemeral.
While my imagination seeks her, my reality runs from her. She is pain.
As years slip by, and fear grows, the impossibility of her weighs on me, but my solitude seduces.
 I can smirk at her for not being there, and gloat that she never gets to hurt me.
But she does. She is very good at it.
All of her faces mock  and pout, teasing me in my isolation.
She may win, one day, but for now I remain... mine.
I curl around myself, feel my own skin warm and aware. I listen to my own breath, the rhythm slow and even.
Peaceful. Content. Safe.
Then in my imagination she slides in next to me.
Hello.
We both smile.