said the spider to the fly.

when i write in here, it's not always about the same person, or even anyone in particular.
and sometimes parts of people are pieced together.
but last night i had a dream about you that was so vivid, so unmistakably you, that i wonder if subconciously this is really all about you after all.

after two years, i know this reaches much further than the romantic.
feeling you next to me, kisses on the top of the head - that is not what anchors me to you.
no.

what keeps you here is everything else.
the six years we were nothing at all, save for good friends, and i admired you quietly, as a person, because i just knew you understood.

what anchors me to you is the car rides to band practice. you asking my advice about another girl, before the thought of us was even in my heart. you linger on because of plane rides and van trips, streetcars and subways, summers in canada, high school graduation, hockey games, cds, almost every band i've seen since i was a 18, certain movies, late night conversations about art and God and Robert Smith.

what anchors me to you is finding the male version of myself in you.
that is not something to be easily let go of, even if there is a sort of sting connected with it.
i can't erase every memory i've made since i was 17. i can't burn every picture, just because you were in them.
i just have to deal with it.

and honestly, i thought i was dealing with it.
but last night, somewhere in the depths of my mind, i decided to step in forbidden territory.
there are certain things i can't forget, and i don't really want to.
but there are other things, the details, that i'd rather not recall. it's just easier that way.

somewhere back there was a storehouse of these things, and my dream gave them a place to come back to life.
a room, a physical manifestation of these memories.
drawers and drawers and drawers and posters and closets and receipts and things of hers that i knew you never gave back.
roses and pictures you drew of yourself in junior high.
even in my subconcious, i knew it wasn't right to be going through these things... to try and hold on to the pieces of you i thought i had already disposed of.
journals you showed me.
pulling out sweatshirts to remember exactly how you smelled (and i can, now).
hockey gear and guitars and books and everything else that adds up to you.

woke up this morning, and i'd been dreaming of you.
two years later and you still make me cry.

4:49 p.m. - 2003-04-21

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