the wrong things for the right reasons (a)

You slip your hand in my pocket to pull out my dreams. They're written in miniscule script on post-it notes, folded into tiny squares and tucked away. I carry them with me so I never forget, I carry them with me to keep them safe. Dreams are fragile unless they're nurtured and protected. They barely exist, vague whisps of thoughts we're sometimes too afraid to even admit to ourselves. Locked in the tightest embrace with all those unspoken desires.

Volumes of unspoken desires. Not only mine, but those of my lovers, the beloved pieces of my heart. The people whose fate I have tangled into my own. The dreams they told me in confidence and the fears they held for their future selves, a collection of quiet hope and pessimistic cynicism.

There's a small jewellery box on my nightstand, where before I fall asleep, I place my minute post-it notes. I count them out one by one, like I have since the day I became a woman. The day my childish, scattered ideas came to close. It was forceful and abrupt.  Those things that I had been raised to achieve I did so willingly. I was grown, directed and nurtured, a smart sapling with potential. My parents were scared when they realised the change that had come over me. They shirked into the corner, spoke in hushed tones and told me, firmly, to sit still. To behave. To be vigilant. In the years that followed I broke every rule and created my own.

When you stepped into my life, it became a part of our joint ritual. I would transfer my dreams from pocket to table, as you removed your watch and rounded spectacles with the beautiful precision that comes with a repeated action. Do you understand what I mean? It's in the way people do ordinary tasks, without added flare or too much thought. The way a concert pianist would play a basic scale. An exquisite naturalness that rids you of any pretence, second nature that's most indicative of our truest nature.

I think that's why we love young children so much, before the thought or planning of a premeditated action ruins it's purity. Babies smile, laugh, gurgle, cry, grip because they are natural reflexes, basal exclamations. We learn our faults.  I guess that was what ultimately left us naked. You, no longer bound by time and the confines of the world around you, and me, freed of the weight of my volumes of desires, my hoard of unspoken things.

Now, suddenly you reach into my pocket without my knowledge, without any warning at all. I, oblivious, continue to stare out the window into the world I've built up. You pickpocket! You horrible, terrible, wonderful thief!