How I Want To Remember You

Sometimes I think about when we used to talk. We’d talk about dreams and fears and how real change could happen with a little time. But now more than a little time has gone by and now we don’t talk anymore.

I still think about the talks and the dreams and I wonder if you still dream the same things. I wonder if you’re dreaming something completely different because you made it happen or you simply changed your mind.

I try to remember all the things I wanted then. And all the things I want now and what’s different and what’s the same. And even though I’m much better now I sometimes miss that dreaming we would do when we were poor and tired but still talking. Before the avalanche came down and everything changed. When I believed in you and thought you believed in me and I didn’t think more of what else could be.

Because even if things were wrong then and I knew about it, I didn’t yet know the full extent. I couldn’t possibly have. And even if I was without that knowledge, ignorant me was happy with the dreaming. She was happy with the talking. Sometimes those are the things we’re willing to trade. Talking instead of silence. Dysfunction instead of truth. Dreaming instead of leaving. A happy me for a happier you.

I don’t think of you often, but when I do, I think about us and the late night conversations; the ambitions you can blame on youth. I think of that strange time in my life and it’s a bittersweet feeling. Joy in knowing you and sadness in what came after. You can’t pick and choose the things you want in a person, but if I could, I’d pick the you who would let me rest my head on his chest and tell me the things he wanted to do. When I remember these things, that’s how I want to remember you.