Where Is He

I wrote this some time ago, and I just read it again today. I don't know how I feel about it anymore. It makes me happy, and sad, both at the same time. I don't know if this is what I want anymore. But it was a lovely dream all the same.

Where is he, I ask you?

Eighteen years have gone and he should've come by now.

Perhaps if I describe him to you, you will know who I mean. Perhaps you will have seen him wandering the street, eating a bagel on the subway, strolling through Boston Commons, undoubtedly looking lost.

Well, first of all, he looks inexplicably like Darren Criss. He likes to wear sweaters and fitted jeans and yes, scarves in the winter. Sometimes, when he's reading, he wears glasses.

He takes me to Feist concerts and likes it when I wear lace and he sings Jack Johnson to me while I try to fall asleep.

Sometimes I wake up to see him sleeping in my chair and I touch the stubble on his chin; he grabs my hand and holds it there. He reads to me too, poetry, the fruit of love, out of the large volumes I keep mostly unopened in my makeshift crate bookshelves.

He is soft and strong simultaneously, which seems like an impossibility, but it's not. Not for him.

He knows when I'm lying and he calls me out.

But he's gentle.

He reaches into my hurting parts and draws them out.

He has discernment

But he never judges me

Because he loves me.

I don't think he exists. But I'll love him all the same, and I won't settle for anything other than him.

If you find him, tell him I'm still here. Waiting. Waiting for him to complete me.

Dream Storage

Stop me if I start getting nauseating...

I have two sets of dreams, and due to this fact alone, you can consider me very accomplished. For some people- many people- never have a dream at all, or if they do, it's only a half dream. You know, one of those dreams that was really more just a happy thought or a pleasant supposition, but lacked any of the true passion, the obsession, that must accompany a dream. In fact some people throw the term about with disturbing casualty; i.e. "It has always been my dream to re-paint this kitchen," or "I dream of one day living in a world where we all live in chocolate houses and take chocolate baths and daily chocolate consumption is mandated by the government." You see, neither of these so-called "dreams" fit into the category of true dreams. The first, because it is far too insignificant to be considered a real, tried and true, heart-wrenching, mind-consuming dream. The second because it's just ridiculous and impossible.

Not like my dreams.

Not only are my dreams passionate, they are also significant and feasible. (I don't say feasible to be a snob, just to explain that they aren't totally ludicrous, you know, like a chocolate world. They are actually possibilities, whether likely or not.)

Anyway, I've got these two sets of dreams, real dreams like I said. They each even keep physical residence in my bedroom, if you can believe it. One set of dreams resides in a box- a beautiful box. Just the right size, about the size of a shoe box. It's embroidered with rose-colored flowers and tied up with sage-green ribbon and I must say, in all it's floral elegance and loveliness, it makes a very fitting abode for the first set of dreams.

The second set of dreams has a very different home. You would find the second set of dreams shoved in a manila folder, amidst a hodgepodge of various other things- paintings I did as a child, a torn-out page of a coloring-book-Cowboy and a stack of miscellaneous poetry and essays. Don't let this reckless treatment make you think the second set of dreams is any less dear to me than the first. Somehow, it just makes sense, for the dreams to be packed away in such different ways.

But you know what the truth is? I don't want all these dreams. Maybe you thought I was lucky, maybe you envied me at first. Maybe you're sitting around at home, just wishing you had so much as one dream to follow and then here comes little old me, with what sometimes feels like a thousand different dreams, too many, so many that they're suffocating me!

So here's the deal.

You can have my dreams. Take them for yourself. For I have a very nagging fear that when you've got as many different dreams as me, rather than go out and grab any of them, it's far more likely that you'll just fail them all.