okay so iām beginning to believe i was born asleep and still havenāt woken up, or still caught in a day dream where my name is the answer to all your security questions. okay. a thousand years of wondering and all i can come up with is that you fell in love with me at a picnic in my imagination. the lemonade we always talk about swimming in sugar and tiny handmade sandwiches from my kitchen, your favorite, extra pickle. donāt forget about the pickles. of course the clouds march in stomping out the sunshine, of course. it was dark and there was lightning so much lightning. donāt be scared just now darling donāt be scared. in the middle of the night we only talk about your version of the story. how iād ask you to stay, asking you to tell me whatās real asking you with my hands asking you with maps, a country called please listen to me, you should know by now that it is an island too far to sail to according to you. i know i know, who dared name an ocean lonely when all the ships are sinking. we can go back we can turn around where the sky is the gentlest shade lavender, we can go back and have a conversation that has never happened before. when everything is the color of day old bruises i wonāt let you down. i promise when i get home i will count every freckle every one. when i get home can we open one of those mason jars full of fresh air because i canāt breathe. i remember that day, although i pretend it was more recent than it was. you were there in a swell of green grass in a dress that makes me blush, and there i was blushing. iām not sure how i made it out alive, skipping the part in the song where you, long gone come busting through a doorway, through the well air conditioned living room and and across the kitchen tile, to the refrigerator where just like in elementary school, my fourth grade heart wrote all your favorite things on flash cards in the blackest magic marker so i could memorize the things that made you happiest. and you turning around in slow motion to see my face, or where my face should be, the only expression i can make anymore, realizing that you realized that i only ever wanted to be something that made you happy. suddenly youāre tired, and iām tired too, goodnight goodnight, iām falling asleep because itās the only thing that doesnāt burn. iām falling asleep to go back again. everything glitches and iām underneath your perfect teeth. you say āI would never hurt youā and i say ājust like that?ā and the layer starts over again, always back to the moment i asked you in my bravest of voices if i could hold your hand. you probably donāt remember that moment, or maybe you do but donāt particularly share the same sentiment over its importance. you see, iām always fine until the part where i have to say it out loud, and then time stops. i have always wanted to tell you that something happened inside me that night and now iām not the same me as i was before. so if you ever cross a bridge. if you ever get my voicemail, if you need me, iāll be sketching up the dramatic parts in my head and theyāll happen just the way i imagined just you wait you wait. the last scene the very last one, the bottom layer, knee deep in mud knee deep in i told you so, you say āi would never hurt youā and instead of saying ājust like thatā i reach up to kiss you and the room evaporates. so if you want lemonade and bedtime stories, if i can make a believer out of you, if you want bucketfuls of november if you want grace if you want the courage it takes to ask for grace, youāre over the train tracks youāre almost home youāre almost there. what else can you say besides āokay pumpkin okay sweetheart, in my head everything was beautiful, the doorway now filled with people who send you birthday cards saying welcome back welcome home weāve missed you, hello. hello. the time spent waiting, chorus of rain, i only invited you over so we could make perfect sense. i only gave my hands away because you didnāt want them anymore. and days later a man with a shark tooth necklace asked if i was okay and i lost it i just lost it. all the little red bricks with their little names carved into them, how they donāt feel comfortable under your feet, how there were hundreds of flowers but somehow we took a picture of the same one the very same one, and how we canāt talk about things like that anymore, how i was sitting on a bench and i didnāt hear you call my name, shaking hands on accident with your parents hello sir hello mam, your daughter is my favorite ghost.