my ioanna,

dream child, sprite who twirled around our living room, quiet and pensive by the windowsill, grown into an urban hippy overflowing with a deep connection to the world that seems to shun her. Over and over, ‘I dreamt you’ what a thing to say to a child, the expectation, the hope, the confusion, what was I in this dream of yours? Do I measure up? Can I live in that dream, is it as harsh as the real one?

dream child, every hope before you, some yours but mostly made up of everybody else’s. is it hard on you, the anticipation of the false move? The meaning to say not quite aligning with the thing that was said. Is there remorse? Oh, my darling daughter, to already have remorse, what a terrible thing. It hurts when I think of it, I want to take it all away, the thorns hidden beneath the roses, the disappointment, the awkward pause that isolates you and drives you deeper into your mind

dream child, you always came to me. I remember. Sitting outside, smoking, you joined me on the porch, some chatter, some nonsense but a quiet settling, watching the world go by. Early mornings when you came down to the basement where I slept from a night’s worth of work in the dark. I could hear your bated breath, the glee, the anticipation, should I wake him? I don’t want to wake him. I should wake him. I could literally hear it.

dream child, I lied to you. You are nothing like I dreamt of. The dream was an idea, a figment of a desire to protect something precious, some manifestation of the love I share with you mother. But you are so much more. There are figures of art that when you look at them, they make your soul sing, they make your soul weep. Like looking at the sky when away from the city, an infinite darkness with a million pinpoints of something terrifyingly far and away.

And that is what I feel when I now look at you. An infinite sky, something beautiful and endless, but instead of silence, instead of an immutable distance, there is a voice that calls to me, that always beckons for me to join her, to join the pure wonder of who you are and becoming.

love, always,
me