a sunday

in my dream I look for you everywhere but cannot find you. in my dream I say to you, "I don't know how to say goodbye to you," but you aren't there. I am running barefoot in the rain to get to you. I can't go fast enough. you drive by and I know it's the last time I will ever see you; you are doing something insipid like returning a movie and you are not alone. I don't care but even so I can't find you, don't catch you. I stand there, barefoot in the mud, my clothes soaked through, bereft.

in one moment of the dream you are there with me. I know you are going, will soon be gone, and everything inside me is frantic. every time I see anything beautiful, I tell you, I think of you. everything I am made of screams: please don't go. if there is a place further from me, I beg you do not go.

I wake and am alone, my head pounding, the hair at the nape of my neck damp and hot. there is one extremely loud bird outside. I spent much of yesterday walking around with a guy and his little hound, ellie. I spent the rest of it on my bike. now I am alone in my bed at dawn and for all that matters, it might as well all be the dream. I still don't know how to say goodbye to you. I still think of you whenever I encounter anything beautiful. I would run whatever lengths necessary, barefoot in the rain, everything on me soaked and ruined, if it would bring me to you. this is the only secret about myself I have been keeping. except from you. forgive me. I couldn't help but tell you.

wherever you are in the world, I miss you more than I can say, even in dreams. still, and, I fear, always.