When I am with him time seems to stand still. Notes, poems and chaotic fragments on love and infatuation fill his notebook when he breathes the clear and light air of home. Home is where the heart is, people say. His heart has been missing for a long time now. It floats somewhere in a canal in Amsterdam or on the Dutch coast. He can almost smell the beach and hear the water dashing to the shore. Words and sounds occupy his mind and time takes him to where the water goes. Over the always moving black body of the sea he sees the moon dreaming its golden dream of life, as if it were alone in the world. Every dreamer is alone in the world, or is he not?

One day at noon, we look at the sky together and see the clouds pass. A gallery of soft, sculptural forms, up at great height. He can identify the most amazing objects in the white mass of foam as I try to find an object I may know.

“I pity those whose gaze is down,” he says quietly “He must have thought about those who are lonely. No matter how thick darkness becomes, there is always light beyond the clouds.” I look at clouds from both sides now.

“If passion were to be assigned to words, mine would be read on my bedroom walls,” he declares to himself.

“I want to read your poetry,” I keep asking him. “I want to see what effect is has on me.” He does not like sharing his words, images and ideas charged with personal expression. But eventually, he shows me a draft.

I own the glistening glow of the sun

In the water of a brand new day, its brightness and serenity.

Mine is the colourful, the large and the plenty.

Ardour, abundance, actually everything under the sun.

He, however, owns the darkness, the fire.

Everything simple and what we desire.

His is the night with all its shadings, the deepness and distance.

Together we own the crepuscule, the flickering lights in our faces.

And we stay until dawn and we will not leave any traces.

Later, at the bottom of the garden on a bench, I see him sitting, motionless, his knees under his chin and his arms folded around his ankles. His eyes are focused on me as I cross the garden. It looks like he did not sleep much. Around sunset we start to drink and lie down on the floor. He likes to touch each bone on my back in slow succession, running his hands all the way down from my neck to my bottom cheeks. It makes me shiver like a fever. Quietly, I lift my head up from the pillow, slowly opening my eyes. I hate it when he cries. I study his face for a few moments and whisper, “Who can blame a dreamer for being tired?”

At nightfall we embark upon contemplating the universe. “What about stars? Do you know how far away some of those stars are? Do you know how it must feel to touch a star and not get burnt? It must feel like kissing.”

We agree and read to one another.

He starts with philosophical problems, “I will never know how you see red and you will never know how I see it. But this separation of consciousness is recognized only after a failure of communication, and our first movement is to believe in an undivided being between us…”

Interrupting him, I look for my cigarettes while reading loudly, “Catherine slid one of her hands under her nightgown and started to caress her own thighs.”

He laughs and passes me the matches. I should really quit.

We continue to sit, the cold night smell coming through the windows. “I should go home.”

“I guess I’m someone who will never be satisfied,” he says. I feel all nerves inside of me move to the surface of my body.

“What do you mean, satisfied?”

“Just – satisfied.” Fires twist through me. I pick my way carefully towards the sex question. Why is it a question? I understand that people need acts of attention from one another - does it really matter which acts?

“Sex is a way of getting to know someone,” he says.

I am obviously nervous. He looks at me and we suddenly fall silent.

“It’s okay,” his voice runs through my head.

I intend to ask something more intellectual than intimidating but the words come out wrong, “You do know that I bruise like a peach?”

With a surprised look, his body stiffens.

“That isn’t a question. It’s an accusation!” Something black and heavy drops between us like the smell of velvet. He switches off the lights. Without touching, we are joined in astonishment as two cuts that lie parallel in the same flesh.

While my eyes ease into the dark, I look at him as he gently turns from one side to the other. When he faces me, I can see his eye move under his closed eyelids, as if they were telling a story. I wonder what his dreams are like. Adventures in the wilderness, maybe a baroque ballroom or a surreal landscape where time is melting, giraffes are closets and everything is on fire. I wish I could dream like that. I only dream about the past. It seems to be déjà-vu, helping me to not forget those past moments.

If he didn’t have to, he would not sleep. He revels in staying up all night, playing with his shadow on the wall. His mind feels in commotion when everybody sleeps and only he lies awake. Then with open eyes he dreams his way through the night, either in hibernation or chrysalis.