Pink Ochre Magazine

            In my dreams, he waits for me behind the store.
            I use the pennies left from my mother’s weekly order to buy us candy sticks, one
apiece, and I join him in his hiding spot. Sometimes we stay there, away from curious eyes
and whispering fools, and other times we run to the tree line, the water’s edge, or any of the
in-between places that everyone else seems to have forgotten. We sit, side by side, close
enough that I can smell the sugar off his breath.
            If I lay my head down early enough, I am rewarded with sweet and sticky kisses
before morning light. I fill in the details of unknown sensations; lips on lips, teeth clanging, a
hand on my cheek. I lean into them with impatient anticipation.
            He loves me in my dreams. There, I know what it’s like to feel so deeply that it
overwhelms me. Inevitably, it creeps into my waking mind.
            In true daylight, I look away before my eyes can wander across him. Here, he does
not love me, but I threaten to with one look.
            I don’t let the difference trouble me. I have him in my dreams, and that is enough. I let
it be enough.