I dreamed, watching the leaves shimmer in the sunlight.

I am six, seven, eight, laughing and tiny, scattered images lost in the annals of my life, smiling as I hop out of the car, seeing her rocking chair in the room, running down a hill towards the forest where ah-gong keeps his garden. Life changes that year, and nothing will ever be the same again, but I don't know that yet, and won't understand that for years, or what's happened when I put my new, favorite teddy bear with the ABC cube in primary colors nestled in the crook of its arm down into ah-bu's box. She will want something that's soft and fuzzy to hug later, but I don't know, like everything else I didn't know then, that I won't be getting it back and heaven is not a place that lets people return their grand-daughter's teddy bears.

A fly is buzzing in the back of class. I can't concentrate, and infinite scroll is out of images. My professor looks like a colder, more refined version of someone I know, but her face, like everyone's, softens when she laughs.

So many faces, when I close my eyes. My mother's, round like mine. My roommate, laughing with her sunglasses on. One of my friends, looking stressed as -surprisingly, she always does, I realize. Maybe I should make her tea more. Yet others can't come to mind - one of my other close friends from college who I don't see that much I can't see in my head - now I can, but it's a younger version, from when I first met her, almost four years years, a crinkle of mischief brushed into the corners of her eyes - but with her, her voice is clear, that specific tone of facedesk that seems to be both be laughing and sighing in so many people's voices all the time when they talk to me. Another friend, sighing and smacking his head, diiiimples, how did you do that this time. Thirteen, and my best friend, opinionated as always, at the lunch table sitting and talking. She still looks  mostly the same and sounds the same, as convicted and a little offset from the world as she's always been, less innocent now but more knowing, which is always the tradeoff, isn't it?

My heart beats syncopation when it's tired, stressed, or worried. Maybe it's like me - order is something imposed on it, rather than natural, and when everything's falling apart, it doesn't have its own order or rhythm. It's never lurched for him, thankfully, because that hurts, but he makes it feel light, and now I worry because it feels heavy sometimes when he's gone, and it's not even his fault. I'm backing away a little, and it's not his fault that I'm making it difficult to call at night even though I still want it but maybe I just need a couple nights to be mine where I can just sleep, or read, or just do whatever I want - but why do I still need/want/miss that call anyways when I'm dodging it half accidentally and half purposefully?

I want to be able to think of you, up close, when your eyes are soft and you look five years younger, eyes Asian-small with their smile and what you say in a voice that will never be heard by anyone else, sweet and gentle. I can't remember, even though I see you all the time on my screen, because it's not you here. But I never can, when I'm sitting here like this, and instead, I hear voices and faces of people past and sometimes, it still hurts, his easy cruel smile and then his silent indifference, though I'll never say it does, because it's in the past, and we forgive those who couldn't know better - right? The last I've forgiven yet I can't forget, and the first I've forgotten but will never forgive, and with both I wish I knew how to just let it all go, even though I don't want anything back.

So their love, their words, their insecurities, their uncertainty, their fears, their unhappiness, their memories those walk with me as I do, and sometimes, it makes three thousand miles away a lot more distant than it really is, even with how much we talk and see each other. But then, with you, all of that fear's been slowly going away. Maybe that scares me, also.

And maybe that's why I can't be in love as much as I could, and I hold a little of me back for me to keep safe, because that's how "right for me" would feel, and sometimes I feel guilty that I do that, because I'm afraid, but most of the times I don't even remember that I hold back that little part of me, because for everyone else, I hold so much more back, and that the only people I don't are the three people that loved me when I didn't even know who me was. So I love you, more truly than anyone in my life that I've been capable of loving, yet at the same time, I can't not be afraid, so not more, but I think you're making all of that go away. I don't know why I'm running away inside sometimes, still, though.

The sun places a quadrilateral on my bed. My arm sits on a larger bear than any other I've ever owned (well, excluding him, but he's not really a bear but a Bear and I don't own him, even if he jokes that all I need to do is smile and then he'll do anything I want) and the grey sheets are smooth underneath my feet. I am twenty two, and failing more classes than I'd care to admit out of indifference, yet also sure it'll be okay, and that I can pull myself through. I want summer to be here, and I'm still anxious but excited about where I'll be.

I'm happy, and lost, but I have a compass, and no matter what, I know where that path is and where I'm going, but I don't want to be there yet. I hope you're okay with that.