Monday, May 14, 2012

A Message in a Bottle (written on torn diary pages)

Dearest,
I worry that maybe you aren't there, like I always imagined. Is it possible that I could be wrong after a lifetime of waiting? I saw you once, as I floated down from a window, in a dream I had when I was so very young. You were just a little boy, but I knew you - to this day I still know your face. I told my mother it was you whom I'd find and marry, but she'd giggled at my little girl fancies and said that it was unlikely. "A girl just doesn't dream up her true love at age six," she said. But I ignored her and have since imagined you aging with me, becoming more and more who I need you to be as the years have dragged on. And the more the years creep on, the more I despair - maybe I did make you up in my head. Maybe I have been waiting for someone who doesn't exist beyond my dreams. But some days, I see you so clearly that I'm sure you've found me, until that person continues walking and I realize it couldn't be you; you'd never walk right by me. You've seen me in your dreams too and you've been hunting for me as I've been waiting for you and I know that when you see me, you will stop. You will stare, and you will know. "There you are," you'll say, "I've been looking all over for you." As if I had just wandered off in a bookstore and you'd found me tucked in some corner, nose-deep in musty pages, and were ready to walk me home.
Yes, that's how it will be. When it's you, you'll know me, and all my waiting will not have been in vain. Then one night, when we're curled together in bed watching the rain fall against the window, you'll tell me about this dream you had when you were six, about a little girl who fell out a window, her skirt popped out like Alice's as she went down the Rabbit hole, and how when you had asked her to stay, she said she couldn't, but she promised to return to you.
"Yes," I'll say, "Don't I always keep my promises?"
And you'll smile, because you know I always, always will. I promise.

Love,
D.

No comments:

Post a Comment