I don’t know if it was so much a fantasy
as it was a dream
that you found your way
out of this forest
that harmed you.
Or at the very least,
that you transformed it
into something livable—
a place where your hands
could grow
something beautiful.
You once made beauty here.
I loved seeing it.
And I’m not saying you do not now,
because you have made yourself
into your own,
even in the bindings,
even in the bramble.
But I see you
bending this wilderness
into something distinctly yours,
a clearing cut open
by your will,
a work that becomes
your finest one.
And once it is done,
the pain rooted there
will no longer call to you,
or to me,
or to anyone
wandering within it.
It will be yours.
A home of bark and breath.
A shelter you have grown.
A place that cultivates
all your abundance.
A place where light reaches
what once only knew shade.
There,
where you finally feel
acceptance and love
in the very ground
where you once believed
there was none.
I dream up lives
for the people I love.
Where they do what they love,
albeit congruent
with some reality
that they could bloom from
if only they would allow themselves—
the same as I dream for myself.
The lives we could grow
if only we allowed
what is tender in us
to root.
It is not wrong
to wish on possible things.
You cannot have everything,
I know.
But you can give yourself
something.
Enough
for spirit to whisper:
I deserved this.
I gave myself
some good in this life.
Enough
to give some good
back to the world.
I lived authentically.
I fed myself truth
like water from the earth,
and I was satisfied.
I want
and care
and dream
and love the people
that I love
to have what they deserve.
But I am old enough
to understand
that I cannot give them
what is not in my hands
to give.
I can only love,
and wait,
and hope to be met
with reciprocity
somewhere in this living world.