I dreamed of Sundays in the park, lying on short clipped grass with the idle leash coiled next to me, watching my dog cantering, then skidding to a stop to sniff some invisible message from a canine colleague.

I dreamed of marmite and butter sandwiches for elevenses, when they called out the lucky ones  who had letters from home. There was one for me, and seeing my name scribbled out whole touched me deeply. It gave me purpose, identity.

I dreamed of the swallows’ fickle flight, and the starlings on Brighton Pier, the miracle of their wingtip dance, a moving cloud that swept and swirled in lurching curves across the grey winter sky.

I dreamed of all the things I missed and could never have again. And I enjoyed them more for the missing.

They worked around me with faces dour and eyes that avoided mine, and I continued to dream. They treated me with unnecessary force, their fear fueled by the threat of my being, counting down to when they could be in the fresh air again, and they would sentence me once more, this time to the coffin of their memory. And while I could hear the dry, rich sound of the leather’s squeak as they tightened the belts that held me firm, I still chose to dream, I dreamed on.

I dreamed as hard as I could for the time I had left, of things passed by and things that went well. I dreamed of lust and the roads it had made me follow, of all the dead ends.

I dreamed what had happened had not, hoping if I dreamed strong enough, time itself could stop, rearranged to suit my innocence.

I even dreamed the future’s unfolding, as if it could be painless. The prick of the needle as it brings perfect peace, the liquid ambrosia to swell my veins with promise of blissful horizons untainted by the human mind.

I dreamed as if my life depended on it, because that was all I had left.