dear future lover

dear future lover,

these days, not often, but often enough, you leak from my dreams into my daylight, as i imagine us in domestic bliss together. i think of us on the couch reading respective books while you lean into me, like i’m a shell and you’re my pearl. but how can i focus on all about love when my love has me hooked right in front of me? every page of you is better than the last. enticing, hard to put down, and perfect for my insomniac tendencies, because what else am i to do at the witching hour?

these days, not often, but often enough, i muse about how we’d look side by side, eye to eye. how we’d walk down the street, hand in hand, arm in arm. us on the subway, your leg folded over mine in a two-seater. you drawing on my hands over washed doodles from the day prior. your laugh, how it could be the most obnoxious, godawful laugh of laughs, but i’d still hear chiming bells. people would look at us and how sick we are in our love that they’d guess we’d only been together for a month, but we’re nearly year one and still mad for each other.

these days, not often, but often enough, i hear our conversations. art and culture are always on our minds. you, the visual artist, and me, the screenwriter, how we go on about our crafts. you watch me watch shows, explaining tropes you don’t quite get, but you’re interested because i’m interested. you see how i light up and decide this is something you want to replay over and over again because the joy is contagious. whatever piece you’re working on that week is my lockscreen, which i boast to whoever sees it. my girlfriend, my partner, my lover, my heart, always on my lips and always taking my breath away.

these days, not as often, but every now and then, i mourn you. the truth is, my heart is worn and exhausted. it has been beaten and bruised by many, broken by few, and shattered by one. i constantly find myself gluing pieces back on to save face. the truth is, there are times i don’t think you exist. that i live in my head for far too long and far too often, that i ask for too much, that i’ll never be lucky enough to meet you. that i’ll succumb to my lonely and become the third generation in my family to die loveless. i fight to keep faith and believe that one of these days, we lock eyes from across the room, and we seal our fates.

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Edited by: Ava Emilione

Find Cheyenne Edwards (they/she) on Instagram at @afroauteur

Find Ava Emilione (they/she) on Instagram at @ordinaryavaa