Dreams have a way of waking us. We re-plugged in our 11-year-old iMac, in our once-kids-room-now-office-space, only ever temporarily resurrected for back-ups, that photo or password. It has been cause of long-dead synapses to flow within my mind, the same electrical energy powering the unit. 

We had to take Benjamin to the dentist because he has cavities due to neglectful brushing. The anecdote I like to say is that I brushed my teeth a whole of ten times in my childhood and didn't have one cavity, so it comes from Daniel's side of the family. Blinking screen: laughter. Back to the city of my twenties, the boring familiarity, endless loops of discontent. People as dead as the screen used to be, emotionless memories, pixilated into living beings I touch and play with in my dreams. 

It's like how you think you'd be so different in high school now. The things that might be different if you are the person you are now, then. 

Yeah, right. 

But I've spent most of my life in a dream anyway: what might be, what should be, what isn't, what I will be, what I haven't been. Sprouting life from the deadfall, moss and mushrooms, un-raked grass. Parts of us die--move on. 

Candlesticks un-melted; gentle snow, resting in the curvature of the trees, forever thawing and melting, changing state. The plant looks like it's dying and yet it's flowering, vibrant purple against the white of the snow, as violent as blood itself, reaching always out, from one windowsill to the next. Turn the plant or it will grow lopsided. We'll always cherish what's old and lost, what wasn't or maybe was, but you weren't sure, because you never really touched it. Whatever might have been, dreams can will: the reverie violet pressed against glass.