I heard you were a conductor.
You stood in front of a hundred and two musicians with your baton in the air and your head held high.  The music notes would fly into people’s ears, wafting away the concussive serenade on the radio.  At the pivotal moment when the audience wondered if harmony could be sound, your arm would dance and the music would swell into an ocean wave.  It might seem overbearing, but a moment before their ears were assaulted, the sweet cadence of woodwind fell down as snow.  You’d bow with all the grace of a ballerina in combat boots, but smile enough to assure the crowd that you had meant to do that.  The music was perfect, and you were not, but nothing that lasts ever is.

I heard you were a teacher.
Pacing to and fro with that childish laugh, throwing facts in the clouds, letting them rain down and soak in.  There’s a power behind words, you’d sing, a soft serenade of conjunctions and adjectives waiting to be released.  Nouns will hold their proper place, but only if you mean them.  You’d cry as the little boy in the back corner laughed at your views, but you’d hold his hand when your favorite kid punched him in the eye.  Even as his bulbous eye glared at you through streams, the smile would return, for you’d wish him well in ten thousand languages, plus that one you made up.  He’d giggle at your stories, then skip off home, where his mother sat waiting, with her bible on the floor.

I heard you were a scientist.
The atoms would collect in your palm, trickling down the creases.  Uptight seniors with wrinkled eyes scoffed at such display, only to find your unorthodox methods were right.  You’d laugh and say it was all a mistake, just to keep them happy, and wave away praise lining up at your door.  Newspaper reporters camped outside when you refused to talk, hoping that you’d spill your secret to the world.  Practiced fingers drifted on piano keys, pounding out a lullaby so you could get some rest.  Finally, they packed up, sucking on their cheeks until they reminded you of that corpse back in college.  You’d cry then too, remembering the girl not older than yourself climb aboard a one way ticket to heaven.  At the morgue her eyes were as wide as dinner plates, and the heart you’d held so dear had been torn in two.

I heard you were a pilot.
You’d fly across the Pacific, avid tourists in tow, watching as the sea beneath you shimmered in the sunlight.  The intercom would go off once in a while, telling jokes to fancy actors with their million dollar bottles of wine.  Later on, they’d thank you for the laughs, forgetting they’d never popped the cork.  Once, in France, you picked up a prime minister with no humor stamped on his forehead.  By the end of his flight, his straightjacket was somewhere in the Atlantic, much to the amusement of the sharks.  Especially that one without a left fin, who swam around in circles, remember, that one who’d wave every time you passed.  Fifty years later, sitting in that comfy hammock you’d wanted in Fiji, you’d remember that there was no shark, only a dinghy without a name.

I heard you were a writer.
I heard you were a lover.
I heard you were a friend.
                            A survivor.
I heard a million and three things, only to find that they were all true.  You wrote the words without that money-seeking pen, and still managed to capture hearts of readers passing by with roses.  You’d conduct the words, then teach them to sing.  You created atoms and made them dance, then fly them to the screen.  With all the praise, you’d think your ego wouldn’t fit into the world, yet it barely fills a thimble, for you script only modesty and truth.  They still remain your best actors throughout the performance, and dedicate it all back to you.

Fifty seconds from now, I hope to see you crying.  I want those salty drops to fill the ocean, just for me.  I want your happy cries to be the only thing every musician hears.  I want to be selfish, and keep you on a trophy shelf.
                   I know you wouldn’t stay.
                                          I know that’d you’d fly
                                                                         Away…

Down the syntax of unkempt hair, flying away in the punctuation that never seemed to fit.
     I know that after that you’d dance across the pages, rubbing out clichés and putting in your magic.  You’d be modest though, when it came to praise, and chalk it off to writer’s joy, or maybe just a fluke.
     I’d hope you blush, when we throw you phrases filled with all those delicious adjectives.
     The description and detail swirling around into a slushy fit to sample when the spotlight in getting way too hot.  When the stares become disgust at talent such as yours, take up the icy mix and shove it in your pocket.  Scoop it out with trembling fingers that have scribbled out Constitutions.  Don’t hold it like it’s made of glass, for we’re a durable crowd.  We’ll bend and contort with every loathing dagger, but be a pillow when your head feels far too heavy.
                       And I want you to know that I-
                                   (Me, with my battle worn body and blue eyes.  Me, with a pen and this stupid smile I can’t get rid of when I think of our conversations.  Me, with all the heart I have.  Me, just me.)
                                   I can’t let go of this keyboard, where the letters rearrange on their own, almost as if that magic in your soul is leaking out of the screen.  It’s weird, how I know you’d laugh and say it was me, but I know that it’s you.

There's a sun in the sky at midnight.
There’s a rose in a nest of weeds.
There are a million words I’m trying to say, hoping that maybe, just maybe…
                                                                                            You’d understand.
      What if I danced across the sky…
          What if I wished upon that wishing star…
              What if I could be right at your door with a speech in my hand, quirky smile in place with my fingers shaking so bad you’d have to clutch them.  You’d have to look me in the eye and tell me that it’s ok.
      That it’s alright.
            That I don’t need to say anything.

But I want to be selfish.  I want everything, everything.
      I want to know the conductor.
      I want to know the teacher.
      I want to know the scientist.
      I want to know the pilot.
            The writer.
            The lover.
            The friend.
                The survivor.

You’d say that I knew.  You would.

I’ll take every phrase I have, all the little tricks I know, to tell you those two damn words that I should’ve said two days and seven hours ago.  I should have said them.

      I suppose it’s better now than later on, fifty years when you’re sitting in that hammock.  You’ll have the picture of that little boy on the side table, along with all those reports that the newspaper kept printing about your success.  Your pilot’s license will be right beside that baton, the one you used to conduct a hundred and two musicians.
      I want you to sit there, with these sheets of paper, or maybe by then they’ll be on a holographic projector and a laptop won’t be any bigger than your pinky finger.  I hope you have tears in your eyes when you think of this.  I hope you laugh a little when you remember how naive we were.  I hope you write those words, the ones that mean so much, in the sand where everyone can see.
By everything I know, everything this heart can manage, I hope you write.
Because, you know, I’d watch upon my wishing star, looking down when the sun was high in the midnight sky.  I’d spell these words even if it took four hundred and six hours.  And I hope you’d wave up at me, pen in hand, and know that I’d always meant them.

                                                Thank you.