#andhscene

[fanta-sea]

i have a vision i wish i could forget. but the mind is stubborn like her owner and the dreams do more than haunting.

it was a city life. you next to me. and the world revolving around us.

[fanta-sea]

If I told my friends this, I would sound stupidly delusional and insane. So I save whatever dignity I have remaining, write it down and hope the words don't betray me.

It was your birthday and I want you to know that it took every bone in my body not to write to you. I hope you had a wonderful day surrounded by people you really love. I hope all your wishes come true and you find the happiness and peace you desperately seek. I wish I was there for it. I hope you're one year wiser.

A part of me wishes you were waiting for my message. A part of me thinks you told your friends to hold off the birthday posts to see if I would wish you first. That you interacted with my post about the date to test the waters. You know that I remember. I know that you know I remember. How could I forget? Memory really is that rope around my neck.

If our places were switched, would you, if you were me, have sent a birthday message? Would you swallow your pride and pain to let me know that after everything, I still haunt your thoughts and you still wish me well? I don't even know you well enough to answer that. It's so stupid. You don't even know mine. In the end everything is just a figment of my wishful thinking. I never knew you, and you never knew me.

[fanta-sea]

I was at an airport. You were beside me, you were holding my hand, and you were looking at me with a gaze that I do not dare describe.

After a while, it was clear you weren't leaving, and I asked you, light heartedly, "Is this real?" You laughed and said "Of course."

[fanta-sea]

You are a rose with hidden thorns. I should have known better than to buy into your sweet lies and empty promises. A rose by any other name was still raised amongst deceit.

[fanta-sea]

For two years, I walked the same path home. Every crack in the side walk, every bump in the road. Now I'm trying, desperately, to find one that brings the same comfort and isn't laced with you. It's like whoever said that the mind forgets but the heart remembers. Only time will judge.

But at least I didn't make the mistake of building a home in you.

[fanta-sea]

How do I tell you about the future I see?

Unlike every other one, we're both young. In this one there are no kids, like how we both would have wanted. The sun is warm but not bright, and I'm in a dress I don't think I would have ever worn. We're climbing a hill with a picnic basket. The wind threatens to blown the large sunhat I'm wearing away. And we're laughing. You're in a comfortable blue button up, with too many buttons unbuttoned as usual. We're smiling as we sit in the sun. And we're watching the unchanging view, just huddled next to each other, still smiling.

I don't remember what we're looking at. I don't know what we're looking at. I could swear it was the hills upon hills of brown-yellow California, but if you asked me again it could be a European countryside, with a chateau nearby and grazing cattle. Ask me again and it would be a seaside cliff with an abandoned lighthouse. It will change every time, but there is one constant – that you were there, and I was there and that we were together, in each others company.

This vision, I've seen before. It's too familiar. It's too perfect and warm and shiny. We're too happy, in our own little world, the calm before the storm. There's a faded sepia tone to it, and it's a little too grainy like a worn out post card. Perhaps this was a past life. We both know this isn't the future. But for now I'll just file this memory with the pile of forgotten dreams. It would be for the best, I decide. Tomorrow I'll set it free and let you go.