I awakened, not long ago, from a dream. I was visiting a beautiful place, in Canada was my impression, riding a bike up a long hill so steep eventually I had to get off the bike and walk. I soon walked into a small tourist town on the water. I went looking for lunch in a small mall, and as I passed a souvenir t-shirt shop, my first instinct was to stop and get you one. And then I remembered.
Even in my dreams, I remember you’re gone.
I ended up talking to a stranger, not you, and asked for a restaurant recommendation, and then I woke up. As I lay in bed, I suddenly had the desire to hear geese. I want to be in your bed, in your apartment, waking up to the sound of geese from the irrigation ponds again. I want to wake up and find this last year was a bad dream. And barring that, I want to have better dreams where you and I are together and talking. It is the fact that I cannot will those dreams that makes me believe the ones I do have truly are visitations. Because if it were just my desire causing them, I’d dream of you every single night.
I want. The wanting never ends, and I want what cannot be. I want what is not. The Buddhists say that that is the root of suffering.
The Buddhists are right. But oh, how I miss you.