Before I called it “I Can Dream About You,” this poem lived as a question about what our hearts do with the loves they’re not allowed to keep. I wrote it to honor the strange mercy of dreaming, where the impossible can be held gently for a while without needing to be resolved.
I Can Dream About You
Of course, not tonight—
for tonight I dine in the company of essence,
a presence so delicate
she seems to have simply left the room,
yet somehow remains beside me,
caught in the corner of my eye,
nearly within reach,
nearly mine in a glance.
I can dream a dance with you.
I imagine the quiet space between us,
the gentle movement of your hands,
the warmth of your breath,
the way the world might disappear
if only for a moment
beneath the rhythm of our hearts.
Yet tonight,
I find myself troubled by glimpses of you.
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I wrote this for the versions of us that only meet when the world stops asking for reasons. In dreams, I can let the wanting speak plainly, without walls, without permission.
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AUTHOR’S NOTE — In dreams, love can move without consequence, tracing the outlines of a life we will never touch in daylight. Here, wanting is allowed to stay, to breathe, to linger in the only room where we can be together and not be undone.
— Author’s Note: “I Can Dream About You” leans into the quiet permission of sleep, where love can exist without needing to solve itself. In that darkened room of the mind, longing is no longer a problem to fix but a story to inhabit, a tender elsewhere for a feeling that has nowhere else to live.
