Missed Connections: to the one I forgot out of a dream

I came across you first in the pages of a National Geographic I had held for my grandfather when he went into the operating room. In many important ways, these years later I am still waiting to return it to him, just as he wakes up. I don’t remember what year in college I was rummaging through old things while unpacking into a small apartment, and decided finally to read it, sitting on a pile of blankets and surrounded by boxes and cleaning supplies. I don’t recall if it was your name or your sentence, whether you were the subject or narrator, but it gnawed on me in quiet moments on hot evenings of too much whiskey, and it was in these moments I began to get a picture of you, the way you stand at bars on work nights and complain about the state of the bodies you are delivered, the work you must put into them; even though you once considered this your art, your contribution to the grieving process; your exuberance has faded. Now it is only flesh upon a butcher’s slab, sinews to fill with chemicals, application of delivered clothing and make up, hair—you are digging through mother nature’s sewage. Or the way you order tea only when no one is around to notice.

And only recently, I saw you for the second time in a dream. I felt that I could see everything that you were, and that I held in proper perspective all the minor details of your life, your readings, the boxes in your upstairs closet, but since I woke, I have not been able to remember any particulars of the dream. And so, even revealed, you remain a persistent mystery.

I want to make plans to see you again. I’ll be searching through newspapers, window advertisements, traffic alert screens, something encoded into the horoscopes, something from the one who prepares the damned for judgement. I may or may not check candy wrappers, that all depends on some personal things.