You have a dream that you're running and the harder you run, the slower you move. Or you are ever colder, each moment you feel is the limit but then you are colder still. Or hot: The bead of water rolls down the rock face, a wet trail on sun-burned stria that never quite reaches your parched lips. Whenever you are about to get ahead your car throws a rod or your furnace coughs black. Two steps forward, one step back. Three more to take. You watch a pot. It is a week before she comes home and several weeks pass and it is still a week before she comes home. There are so many ways I could tell her I love her without actually saying it.