Summer heat calls to me, peering in through my window--several stories up--

asking me out to play. But

a phone rings, 

an intern rushes in,

a Dreamer follows in tears. 

           : Not today, Summer. I'm where I need to be. . .

 

Seven years of secondary schooling--public and private:

Tiny cubilces with bedrooms they call dorms holding 

1 Math Major + 1 English Major = 2 breakdowns

      every finals and mid-term week

     every impending project due date. 

Are we friends for life? . . . 

Late nights burning out and changing lightbulbs and

bad cafeteria food meant losing my Freshman 15. 

You would have been hard-pressed to find a dress or a pair of jeans in my dress, which

held mostly sweatpants and hoodies for sick days and tired days (which was every day). 

I spent months in library corners wearing those sweats--barely functioning-- as I 

wrote my thesis. And all of that culminated in 

 

3 degrees: 1 Bachelor's, 1 Master's, 1 Doctorate all of them in 

                      English. 

Countless hours analyzing poetic and novel geniuses and plenty of 

doubt on whether or not I this was my Calling plauged my college years. But

nights of books, poems, and plays dancing through my head

would make me smile as I went to bed;

My tears would slow, my fears domesticated, and

I would calmly think of nothing but

 

Loans . . . Did I make that scholarship deadline? Did I turn in that payment? 

 

Four years of interning with three (?) different 

publishing houses and newspapers (Applebees, Pizza Hut, Wal-Mart, and Kohl's on the side);

Half my time fetching low-fat soy lattes for people throwing out my manuscripts.

The days blurred much like how water color runs, 

blending into abstraction until my head and the painting hurt.

Where do I begin?

 

I quit. 

But I don't. 

Is it time to get out and find my own way?

Is today finally That day?

 

My dream--my Purpose!-- lost

under a sea of gross neglect.

Trim back those weeds and remove the ivy;

Throw back the curtains and let the moon's glory shine

through jaded starshine a hundred miles down to dust my 

dreams:

 

An office with fresh manuscripts--

all are looked at, none are ever tossed--

over looking a street teeming with people. The 

sun glints off my glasses, startling the pigeon roosting on my sill. 

He flies away, cooing annoyance, his white-grey 

down as fresh and aged as the Dreamer before me. 

  Nervous sweat glistens, making him shine;

He is not yet jaded. 

He is why I'm here. 

 

I hole his manuscript--his dream-- in my hadns, and 

I say nothing. 

Cultivating someone's writing style, helping one discover

genre preference, A Gift, and a love of language . . .

I'm prepared to help this Little Dreamer fly, 

not like Icarus, dying by the Sun, 

but living by the soft Moon-- dust falling, sprinkling dreams with 

lifght and life. 

 

Breathe love and pour blood into your dream, Little Dreamer. 

Do not cry over dull or convoluted structure and prose;

Set your pen to paper, let your mind wax in throes

of delight. As you set out on your pilgrimage

let me follow at your side, pulling the weeds

and opening the curtains that allow you to see Your Moon, 

allowing you to rise up and join her beauty

so I may open my curtains and feel Your moon dust

settle on me. 

 

 . . . :Not today, Summer. I'm where my Dreamer needs me to be.