There’s a stillness in this dream. So still it’s like a silent movie in which understanding needs no words. The dream cuts to a hilltop where we lie side by side. There is no sound except for the occasional breeze that carries soundlessness to fill our ears. Your gaze wanders the sky — the canvas of your thoughts — before landing on my shoulder. When I’m with you, I forget that we exist in a world where days must end. The earth molds itself to make way for those who will, cobblestones chime under our feet, and air makes a tunnel in the shape of our silhouette. In an ancient city, fractures on its walls suggest this is the only way forward –– with patient resignation to endure love's wavering passions. Yet I find myself disagreeing with their wisdom. Lying with you on that hilltop, I sense a different stillness entirely. A stillness of eternity suspended between the past and present as if nothing will escape. And beneath that stillness, there’s unscripted madness, on which we were too drunk for regrets. Rushing down E 3rd Street in the autumn breeze with your hand in mine, I was spirited by a feeling –– a feeling I wish to never live without. A feeling or simply you?
•
Reminiscing feels like sitting in the afternoon sun with a fragrant cup of coffee –– which was where my friend Kriss and I found ourselves conversing when this thought came to me. Not quite waking up from the caffeine, the brain is hugged in a warm and fuzzy haze. A haze cast by something big and far away, in a place where only the past reaches me, and never the other way around, albeit me trying. My eyes, in a mood for gazing, wait for something to make sense, and it usually does, just not by my doing.
•
I walked with my friend to pick up her wedding rings. A French bungalow sat on Huating Road with skeletons of train tracks inlaid in the path leading to its entrance. Vines and flowers grew over its facade; floorboards squeaked. The shopkeeper brought out the pair of rings, wrapped so carefully in ribbons. I watched as my friend slipped hers on –– crafted by a German jeweler with botanical vines engraved in the band. She held up her hand, the ring glinting from the light in her eyes. After what seemed like an eternity in a blip, she looked up. “It’s beautiful,” I breathed, voice trembling a little in a way that only I could notice, awestruck by two hearts’ promise needless of any explanation. “I can really feel it,” she smiled, putting the box back into the bag, placing faith in forever.
•
“A new life is different from a better life.”
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We said goodbye. As Line 2 took me eastward, I thought about a visit to Svalbard and the submarine that rescued itself after being MIA around the Aurora Vent Field for three days.
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“I’m so sorry, it’s really hard not to shape someone we love into an ideal person for ourselves.”
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“To have a feeling is to want something you couldn’t have.” (Rothman)
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“Do you think aliens would find flowers beautiful?”