The Dirtier skin

"no ship will ever take you away from yourself"---Constantine Cavafy

That was long ago. Very long ago. It was that particular time of year when the shadows dance around your face as the moonlight seeps through broken clouds. We lay close, your hands trying to sketch the reality into my ears----the existence of a career and success, of a circle of friends and family, of fame and of you. 

Your soothing words were covering my eyes like a lullaby, I was slipping but slumber wasn’t heavy on my eyes. I heard your voice. I saw the clouds. There was something I was waiting for. I didn’t know. Maybe a kiss. You kissed me tight. I was still waiting. I looked at the sky. The place where the moon supposedly hid herself was dimly bright beneath the clouds. I heard you say something… "your skins dirty from all that walking. Go have a bath and see you at work tomorrow”. You left.

 I lay there numb , playing with my hair …minutes lapsed …I don’t know when but I slipped into a dream…of a few wild horses running in a backdrop of some faraway dusty barren  terrain, the perspiration of exhaustion trickling through the wild hard muscles ,their manes glistening in sunshine, their hoofs picking up golden dusts in every step, …thud thud thud thud…Somewhere within them i stood, soaking in the morning sun..breathing in the the free air…my dirty skin shining with an ochre glow...thud thud thud thud....I woke up. Just then the clouds parted and the moonlight danced upon me, my dirtier skin, and the cleaner me. I knew what I had been waiting for....