Happy valentine's day!

The dream
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i just woke up from a dream about an ex boyfriends sister. she was beautiful and small with very dark lips. in the dream, her and i were sitting in a restaurant at separate tables waiting for the men we thought we loved to remember us. they never did. we walked out of the restaurant empty bodied. the street was an american summer, not the british one her and i knew well. by the time i could feel the air on my face, i had somehow already decided that i was going to try to make her happy. near by a tree had unripe dragon fruit hanging, i picked them for her, held them in the open mouth of my dress, told her that if she waited a few days, the way they taste would make her forget, if only for a few seconds, the pain of always trying to love the wrong person. then i walked her into a small bookshop, bought her book of photographs that were the colour of fire flies caught in mason jars and honey still in your mouth. she smiled at me. then she went home. i wake up and i think of her brother, about how he had tried to find the right words to say to me for two years, how we both ignored that he never could. i think about the loneliness that sometimes makes me want bite into my mattress. i think about holding close to me a woman that has been hurt in a very real way. i don't know why i am always trying to save other people. even in the dream i was being for her, the man no man could ever be for me. i am just a body begging anyone and anything to hold me. quick while i am still soft to touch and easy to impress, tell me that all this love i carry by default belongs to someone worthy.

- Warsan Shire