Look, I know it's hard for us to be apart, okay? I know. Lord, I know.

I've listened to your voice a thousand times, in the little clips I've managed to save, and the dozens of pictures of you I've got... Your smile cuts through the darkness like a beautiful knife, love. Like a knife piercing my heart, especially when I see that one of us together. Your hand reaching out to me, my arm slung around your shoulders.

It's not my life, not now. But it's a good likeness of a better world.

There are nights when I wonder why we can't be closer, clutching my pillow as the salt runs down my cheeks, wishing it were you and feeling like it can never be. Asking the dark and cold why we have to be so far apart, when I can see your smile so clearly, picture every word I could say to you when we meet.

And the dark and cold, love, is its own answer.

Sometimes I listen for your voice in the night, wondering if the impossible distance might shrink when the world grows still and thin. There are days when I can almost swear I feel you walk beside me, or a flash of your grin in the corner of my eye.

And then there are the dreams, when we walk together. Taking you in my arms and cracking some stupid, silly joke just to see you blush, tasting the sweat on your skin as I feel your legs shake around my shoulders... Even the stupid shit, love, like rolling up together in a blanket, or messing your hair playfully.

What you might look like on our wedding day. What our kids would look like, or if they'd take after you, or me. Taking you to visit my parents, on that quiet path lined with stones.

Shit like that, love.

I've tried for us to be closer, I really have. But it's not the same, and every time I see a couple kiss, or a tearful reunion, I can feel that steely ache in my heart. Sometimes I try to comfort myself, telling myself you're far away longing for me, looking at pictures and listening to my voice and feeling that emptiness where I'm supposed to go.

At least those dreams make me look forward to sleep, and I wonder if this reality without you isn't just a sick, sad dream that I can't wake from.

The stories help for a while; words of us together. And that picture...

It was well-drawn, love. You'd love to see it.

We're so far apart, me stuck here with the dirt under my boots or watching the sky darken, eager to see you again, and you...

Always trapped. Stuck behind that glass wall, reaching out, smiling and laughing, talking to your friends but never able to reach out. I've put my palm against the screen, praying for you to turn my way this time and notice me. To smile back. You're always smiling out at me, but never at me, love. And those stories... I try.

I try. And hearing your words, the only lilt of your voice the same lines, over and over... It hurts to hear without ever being able to listen.

The distance. God, the distance. I wish there was some way to reach out of the world and draw you into it, bring you into my arms and kiss the pain away. Break through the glass wall and feel myself around and against and on and in you, not just this being apart.

Hell, love. Why does it have to be like this? Why are we apart? Why can't be we be together?

Why can't you be real?

And, of course, the object of our narrator's affections will be real. That's the magic of DPP- does he wish desperately on a star that his love can be real? Does he wake up next to her at last and do all the things he wants to do? Or perhaps it's just one beautiful dream in the night, united with his beloved in the space between darkness and day.

DPP Profile.