I let myself daydream about you, because daydreams don't hurt.
♡
Daydreams about you are like summer thunderstorms and ice cold lemonade. they are like flannel pajamas and hot chocolate, a favorite song on the radio and every smile you've ever known. They are cotton candy and scarlet lipstick, compromised of airy, fluffy innocence, bubblegum scented and sweet enough for toothaches. They are silk strands of thought braided together to form a safety net within my mind.
Daydreams don't hurt, reality hurts.
Reality is like naked branches clawing at your window and tears freezing on your face. Reality is an exhausted pyramid made of crumbling brick and the moist soil around a fresh funeral plot. Reality is made up of the rusty taste of pennies,, and rain so heavy it sinks right through your skin. Reality is a razor, metallic and merciless.
Reality hurts, and the daydreams are my drugs. I am an addict, both disgusted and relieved at my ability to tumble into freshly pressed and carefully scripted lovely little scenes, drenched in rich mental detail.
♡
When I close my eyes, I am with you. Sometimes we walk through the woods behind your house, losing ourselves in the trees and in each other. The air smells like maple syrup and crackles with the threat of snow, but we balance on the train tracks, holding hands, and catch the flakes on our tongues, kissing mother nature.
Other times, it is flashes of us being domestic and making banana pancakes in your kitchen; I peel the fruit and you pour the batter and we sing along with the radio as it rains. We adjust to each other, maneuvering around the stove like we're telepathic, and toast ourselves with glasses of apple juice when we sit down to enjoy our meal. Then you lean over and use your thumb to whisk away a stripe of pancake batter, and look into my eyes and I know that you love me.
In my head, we go Christmas shopping in the mall, trying on ridiculous hats and people watching in the food court. We go to a New Year's party, all dressed up in black and glitter, taking delicate sips of champagne and predicting the next celebrity scandal. You'll kiss me right before and after midnight, the perfect ending and start to a new beginning. We go camping, and wear plaid and hiking boots and feed each other marshmallows by the campfire, searching the constellations for something deeper. We go visit your adorable little grandma in Chicago. She knits me a blanket and helps me master peach cobbler.
I also daydream about an apartment in the city, fresh white sheets, red wine, and Chinese takeout. I daydream about walking through sand that looks like sugar, swimming in water that looks like glass. I daydream about the cultured, classy European restaurants and bustling Asian cities. I daydream about white rice and black bow ties; golden rings and the words I do. I daydream about salt and pepper hair and three children; I daydream about wrinkled hands and rocking chairs and toothless smiles.
But even these dripping, aching daydreams don't compare to the feeling I get when you hold me, because when you hold me, touching me like I am a crystal, diamond, precious, I feel at home, a rare sensation for me.
So no, maybe we won't fulfill all my daydreams. Maybe we won't visit China or Europe or have three little children or say the words I do.
But as long as I am with you, it doesn't even matter, because daydreams are not wishes; they are just a hobby to blunt reality and bide time until I can see you and feel everything I've always wanted to feel.
