Pumpkin,

You told me once you believe in alternate realities. That we get glimpses of them in dreams or deja vu, shifting into other dimensions because reality and the truth depend greatly on our own point of view, and how memories can differ for everyone who experiences them. Feelings that all of this has happened before. Maybe it has. But in other worlds, and a little differently.

In every world, and every life, I’ve been able to feel you, even though we’ve never touched.

A few months ago, in our other life - you chided my vision of our happily ever after. You scolded me for daring to believe in a fairy tale.

Yes, my love, I believe in fairy tales. In mysticism and time travel, other dimensions, and ghosts on the shore. In a lion who came back to life because of his courage, the man of Metropolis who stole our hearts, and a pie maker who can raise the dead.

I believe in a star that fell to earth and fell in love with a mortal man over the garden wall, in a woman who came from the water who sheds her seal coat to stay forever with the sea captain who saved her, and in a King of Ithaca who journeyed for 20 years to be reunited with his beloved.

I believe in elves and dwarves, hobbits and tree-ents. In mermaids and princes, princesses and space pirates, werewolves and vampires, robots and night zombies. In wizards and witches and unicorns. In the North American forest ape and flying DeLoreans. In white rabbits, winged white horses, luck dragons, and the Crane Wife. I believe in somewhere over the rainbow, second star to the right, Agloe New York, dandelion wine, and the ones who leave Omelas. I believe in Freedom, Beauty, Truth, and above all things, I believe in Love.

I believe in an alien with two hearts, in close encounters and the twilight zone, in Deep Thought, and a kindly extra terrestrial botanist, who lives in our hearts. In magicians and Jedi. Desert cowboys and forest fortune tellers. I believe that if we follow the emerald star, we will meet the starman waiting in the sky.

So yes, I still believe in fairy tales. Even strange ones. Because fairy tales can be, and are, true. They exist to give us hope that even the darkest shadow will pass, that the most fearsome dragon can be beaten, and beyond the clouds, the sun is shining. They are true because they show us fleeting glimmers of joy beyond the suffering and death within the walls of our worlds. Hope is the thing with feathers. And it never stops. At all.

Even the most extraordinary, ordinary life can be filled with magic.

I was afraid all my life. And alone - except for when I was with you. You are the only thing that's kept me from sliding permanently into the deepest darkness. I'm by your side, always, and I love you through this deafening silence. You can wake up now.

Please come back to me.

I love you.

Your Petal