What We Want

What We Want

What we want
is never simple.
We move among the things
we thought we wanted:
a face, a room, an open book
and these things bear our names -
now they want us.
But what we want appears
in dreams, wearing disguises.
We fall past,
holding out our arms
and in the morning
our arms ache.
We don't remember the dream,
but the dream remembers us.
It is there all day
as an animal is there
under the table,
as the stars are there
even in full sun.

- Linda Pastan

This poem was posted originally on Jena Strong's blog on January 25, 2007.

I have been having some very vivid dreams lately.
And every morning, I wake up with achy arms and an aching heart.
Realizing again, confessing again, filling my journal yet again
with lists (remarkably short lists) of the things I want.
The simply impossible things I want.


And every morning, after I write down the details from my dreams, I follow those descriptions with all the logical reasons why what I want is unattainable and impossible, why those things are not mine to have, never were and never will be. I explain to myself over and over just how selfish I am to even think these thoughts and dream those dreams - as if I can control my dreams. I scold and reprimand myself - over and over. But then when Mondo Beyondo time comes around, when Journal Your Christmas comes around, when New Year's Eve comes around (and here they all come yet again) - and I spend time sitting in front of the Christmas tree, journal in hand, memories and gratitude and wishes and hopes in mind, those same impossible things that I want appear yet again at the very top of my wish list. Every single time.


What animals are lurking under the table in the kitchen of your soul, friend?
What are you dreaming of and aching for?
No need to tell me. Tell yourself. Say it out loud to yourself and for yourself.
Perhaps this next year or this next month or the next few days
the moment will arrive when you and I get some of what we want.
Impossible though it may seem from where I sit right now.