Dreamers

I love dreamers. I love them.

I love those blessed/cursed individuals who periodically invade my private space. And I’ve learned I must count every minute in their presence as precious. I must carve into memory every fleeting impression, cling desperately to every nuance of personality, spirit speaking directly to spirit …

because I know it won’t last.

It can’t last. Dreamers are too fragile to live long in my world. There’s only so much they have to give before they are consumed by the very green fire that feeds them.

And I despair when only the husk remains, a true abomination. If the gift was being withheld from me, I’d hate it. I truly would. But this … thing … that no longer has a gift to sacrifice as a blessing – where only the self-mocking shell remains … well, there are no words for grieving loss, no matter how I grope for them.

Did I do this? Did I contribute to …

Understand it’s not a case of love or hate – never these. Never. It’s indifference. Indifference is fatal to the dreamer.

I realize at times like these just what a lump of sod I’ve become. I realize I’ve stifled my own ability to dream so willfully and for such a long period of time that I sometimes wonder if there’s anything still there at all.

Yet I still see them – the dreamers. Day and night they lightly dance around me. I still have enough wit left in me to at least recognize them, as they weave unimagined tapestries into my dullard’s imagination.

And maybe maybe recognition is a good thing. It is, isn’t it? Isn’t recognition a sign that there’s still something in me that could be resurrected? I have a longing for a longing.

And I’m aware of it, and it’s delicious.

Thank you, dreamers. I love you.