Baby, We'll Be Fine

My quest for a typewriter
is over.
While adventuring in the
treasure trove which
is my grandparents' basement,
I found a lovely, electric
Olivetti typewriter.


Full working order,
still inked up,
clacking along quite
beautifully.
I'm in love with it,
really. It's perfect,
and my birthday present to
myself, as my grandmother
was quick to be rid 
of the machine,
she didn't mind my taking it
at all.


And the exploring was thick
and wonderful and amazing.
Among the most intriguing finds:
- A WWII German helmet.
- A perfectly intact copy of Chairman Mao quotes.
-A picturesque bundle of love letters from my 
grandfather to my grandmother while he was away at college.
-A fan from the LA Chinatown in the 1960s, along with
-Old incense sticks in original, unfaded 60s packaging from India
both of which my grandmother acquired on her cross-country journey at
the age of 16. 
-A ukulele banjo, which is a real thing, I promise. 
-My grandfather's 50s/60s boyscout hat, looking fresh as ever.
-My grandmother's wedding dress.


And numerous photographs, indian arrowheads, yearbooks, etc etc.


This is why I love old stuff, it tells so many stories, and they are all wonderful. 
The journeys and adventures behind the objects fascinate me.
I want to live in these things.
And everything I found was in perfect condition, clean, uncreased, unfaded,
mint.
The issue of LIFE magazine from the first moon landing. 
Incredible.


Aside from this euphoria of old stuff and nostalgia,
I had a dream which has stuck with me,
a great dream, and the dreams are vivid
these days, for reasons.
I remember them all, they have details like
nutrition facts on Thousand Island salad dressing.
Or how I hate how my voice sounds when I yell.


But this dream was the first of these
new-style dreams to have this boy I like
featured in a positive light,
a way I can be happy about, and not wake up sad over.


We were brushing our teeth
in front of the bathroom mirror,
in our pajamas, 
which for him consisted of underwear
(details you don't need to care for).
I had short-shorts.
We were quiet, but then he touched my hip
in a way I can't even quite grasp except in dreaming.
He said quiet things about how he liked
how I looked, but then noted my
ribcage was off-kilter, a little bit unsymmetrical.
Which was bizarre in itself,
but he touched my ribcage
on the left.


It was uneven.
His fingers grazed the patches
of bone, and the way it lilted.


And then it was dark and 
I was whispering in his ear
on my tiptoes to stay, stay
and sleep over.
He told me quietly he had work, 
he couldn't stay,
but stayed anyway
and slept beside me
as the big spoon.


This dream
makes me so sad,
why can't my life
be like that?
Why won't this work?