I disclaim etc.

~Want~

___________

This is not my life. I keep telling myself that and everyday I wake up and I still have cancer and I'm still probably going to die. I'm too young to die. I haven't done all the things I ever wanted to do yet.

I can't tell Zander what I want. The poor boy can barely look at me without guilt. He sees it in me. He sees the cancer slowly eating away everything that is pink and good. One day he won't be able to look at me. One day he'll forget to visit and we'll both know it's just too hard for him to watch me fade away. One day he'll meet someone new and it won't be complicated and she won't be dying, then he'll stop coming altogether.

And the truth is, I want to let him go. I want to stop clinging to him and to Nikolas. I'm not being fair, I know that. But sometimes we want what we can't have.

I want to be a Polynesian dancer and shake my hips in a green grass skirt while dark-skinned men beat on drums.

I want to streak in the summer-time with the hot ocean breeze on my naked back and lay on the wet pavement under the stars.

I want to climb a mountain and watch the sun come up over a valley of trees. To be so breathless and tired from the walk I can't feel my legs and I'll collapse on the ground always watching the horizon.

I want to spend the whole day building sand castles and then smash them as the tide rolls in.

I want to stretch out my hand and have a stranger take it. I'll find out their story while we sip iced mochachinos and we'll become best friends.

I want to buy an expensive pair of shoes and give them away to the first person I see on the street.

I want to learn to play an instrument from an old book I find at a flea market. I'll play the cello with its bulk rested between my legs and I'll hum along while I watch the birds outside.

I want to eat warm ice cream and cold tea.

I want to sing at the top of my lungs into the Grand Canyon and have tourists take my picture.

I want to sleep for a week straight and then never take off my pajamas, even when I go to the ballet or theatre. I want to hop on stage and twirl around with bare feet. I want security to chase me out the door while I laugh so hard I cry.

I want to do/see/be so much.

Most of all, I want Nikolas. I want to come home from work exhausted and then make love in the kitchen while he feeds me ripe pears. I want to share a bubble bath while he rubs my feet and whispers poetry into my ear. I want us to have a chubby baby and pretend to eat his feet while he squeals with laughter. I want to teach him about books, and life, and love. I want a family.

I want what I can't have because I'll never get any of these things if I die. This can't be my life. I'm too young to die.