The Oregon Dream and Other Secrets

I almost said it yesterday

when you were struggling with the jar,

how your concentration face

makes me forget what I was worrying about.

I almost told my sister

that I'm tired of pretending

that I am okay when she asks,

that some days I wake up scared

for reasons I can't explain.

There's this dream I have

about moving to Oregon,

opening a bookstore with a cat.

I've never told anyone because

it sounds too much like giving up

on the life I'm supposed to want.

I almost cried at the grocery store

watching an old man choose

between two kinds of soup,

thinking about all the dinners

he's probably eaten alone.

When you laugh at your own jokes

I want to say how much I love

that you still think you're funny

after all these years of nobody

laughing but me.

I keep almost writing letters

to my high school English teacher

who told me I would never be able to write.

The words pile up like snow

against a door I can't quite open.

Tonight, lying here beside you,

I almost whisper all of it:

the Oregon dream, the scared mornings,

how your terrible jokes save me

from taking myself too seriously.

But you're breathing that deep sleep breath

and tomorrow feels like there maybe time

to figure out how to say

what almost never gets said.