What I Want

On memories and dreams, the things that are coming, and the things that have gone.

I want a steak and a fast car. And also I want a peanut butter sandwich and an old truck to bump down dirt roads. I think I could hear the music better that way.

I want clean sheets and bare feet, frosted windows and gleaming sunsets.

Give me a view of mountains and grass, packed soil, a new computer. Sometimes I want to go fast and other times I want to go slow.

I want you to want me the way I want to be wanted, gently and also with an undeniable force like summer thunderstorms that bring the softest rain. I want wet hands and garlic skins and sweeping the day’s dirt back out the door.

I want a window above my kitchen sink, a fridge full of color. I want paint spattered on my favorite jeans and to scratch my arm in the fence as I climb over it.

I want the floorboards that creak in predictable places and I want to feel your hands, rough with joy, searching for me in the dark. I’ll light a candle when the power goes out and fill the bath with rose petals. I’ll buy a plane ticket to somewhere far, far away.

I want to feel my heart beat as I run up the hill toward you, where I know my breath and my name without question. I want spices and herbs and conversation drifting out of the kitchen, open windows and someone to come play the piano.

I want to hold my grandmother’s hand and look into her eyes and ask her all the things I’ll never know, I want the iron bacon pan, warped, like art, hanging on the wall.

I want to know that even if it doesn’t matter it still does, that birds sing for a reason and opportunities come when you’re ready. I don’t know who decides where we go, what we keep, or what we want, all I know is a fresh peach, wool blankets, wind in my hair, shooting stars that only I can see, and the smell of your soap on my pillow, are all things I will want even when I have them.