It’s been 10 years this February and you still haunt me at 3 a.m. These dreams, from my darkest, never leave.

As I awaken, shaking, my first thought – always – is that I’d give anything to hold you one more time and smell your skin, touch your lips, just hear you breathe and listen to your heartbeat.

Then rational thoughts override the frenzy – I wouldn’t give anything, surely, only some things, I tell myself. Not even most things; surely, there’s so much I’ve done in life since I left you.

But those dreams, when they come, leave me shaken and stirred, feeling betrayed and burned. Don’t ask me at 3 a.m. – when I’m weakest, with almost no will of my own – what sacrifices I would make to have you back, to see you smile.

Give me time to shake off the memory of you and then, nothing will bend me – I will not break. When dawn breaks, the magic of you (almost) fades away.