A Fantasy

(“It is a joy to be hidden and a disaster not to be found.” –Donald Winnicott)

It is strange to think, when I ask myself like Tony Hoagland does in “Distant Regard” what I would do if I knew I had a few months left to live, that I’d like to spend my last moments alone. I’d like mostly to feel how enchanted and dignified I am after reading Proust, about Swann’s enchantment with the quiet phrase of a simple sonata, one that binds him to Odette and the maddening reprieve of invisible truths, what is always within and out of reach. What else is like sitting here with Proust and Tony, pondering these fleeting images I have of lying next to you, rather than lying next to you. For some reason my parents are here as well, next to my death bed. It’s not as warm as I want it to be. But I am full somehow, possibly with the air of forgiveness. I prefer nothing else than that which I am thrown into, this place that has become a home of sorts, even with its shade of loneliness, its hours in the dark scrambling to escape only to find myself back inside, yearning for more. I want to be here, which might say something about my relationships, which says something about myself, or only myself and how I relate to others, things I may not like to admit and hence are best left without explanation. Until I feel close and rooted enough with someone like you I will continue to likely want the presence of dead men and poets I don’t know. I will enjoy the daydream of a felt understanding while thinking of you, you walking up behind me with a kiss ready to give as I am squeezed into tears by the beauty of sadness, the tenderness of longing, for the loss of that which has grown familiar. You with your mouth which one day says I know why you are here. It is yours and yours alone, you say. I will be here, waiting, waiting in shadows of my own, watching the candlelight flicker on reflections of your face.