sticky dates
on dreams, longing, and the ache of belief
There it was. An empty shopping cart, its cold steel ribs waiting for something to give it purpose. It stood there in the lot, hollow, abandoned. You saw nothing in it. I saw everything.
I saw the night swallowing us whole, the wind raw against our faces, breath crystallizing in the air from our laughter. February would have pressed its cold hands around us, but still, we would have moved and played like kids in the mid-summer. I built a world in that hollowed-out frame, filled it with longing and the soft pulse of possibility.
And you, with your measured breath and clipped thoughts, looked at it all—at me—and saw only foolishness, a thing too flimsy to hold, a dream already rusting.
It hurts in a way I cannot describe—like a dull bruise throbbing beneath the skin. A hit that did not land on flesh, but somewhere deeper, in the marrow of me, in the soft, unguarded place where belief once swelled. And now—it aches.
An ache of carrying hope in a world cold and indifferent, handing me nothing but proof of its absence. Of holding onto something intangible, only to realize that even the invisible things can become unbearably heavy.
Because continuing to believe when the evidence is stacked against me—what kind of insanity is that? Yet, I do it. I do it because the alternative is a kind of death, a hollowing out, a surrender I cannot stomach.
So we must be strong. We must build castles in our minds and develop callouses in our hearts—not to keep things out, but to shield our delicate desires and hopes. The world will test us and press its sharp edges against our flesh, telling us to surrender, give up, let go.
I cling to my dreams like sticky dates, sweet and stubborn. They refuse to release and dissolve even when the world tells me to loosen my grip. Even when the world says to let go, I don’t want to. There are so many things we must continually hold in our palms, knowing they will one day leave—friendships, relationships, places, communities, memories. For once, I want to hold onto something, to not be consumed by the weight of impermanence, to have something good and never have to leave.
Some days, my dreams are rich, soft, and toffee-like, my belief in them effortless and their pull strong and sure. Other days, they are too much, sticking to the roof of my mouth like tar. They feel like they were made for another world, a gentler one, a world that isn’t already overflowing with bright, easy distractions that melt the moment they touch your tongue. Still, I hold on.
People talk about having dreams like they are simple things— like ripe fruit that can be plucked from a tree, gathered into a basket, and carried forever. Like they don’t become heavy when the world claims them impossible, when the whispers of impracticality and unreasonableness start to make them rot and moldy with thought. We talk about building dreams—but what about keeping them?
We must stick to them. Not because it is easy. Not because it does not hurt. But because the alternative is to become empty, to let the world strip us of everything tender and true. And that, more than anything, would be the greatest loss.
So I keep to my dreams like sticky dates—sweet and stubborn, refusing to let go. I roll them over my tongue, let their honeyed ache seep into me, and remind myself: this is true nourishment. I would rather get drunk on their richness, derived from the rays of the sun and ripened with time than succumb to the artificial, pre-packaged empty expectations of the world around me. Better to ache with the weight of what’s mine than be hollowed out by what never was.