Can't shake off this weird feeling...

Last summer, I went to China with 38 other kids from around my area for the better part of a month, and I look fondly back on it (actually today a year ago I was the shiny and beautiful city of Shanghai) every day. I made really close friends last summer, but I also fell in love. April 21, 2007 was the day I met him (before we left, we had monthly meetings to prepare us for the trip). It was the first time I had noticed him, and he took my breath away. As we moved around that meeting, all I wanted was a good vantage point for me to just look at him. Then as we travelled throughout that enormous country I fell deeper as I got to know him better. We became close friends, but then I learned he had a girlfriend he was crazy about. He is no longer with that girl, he has a new one, and believe me when I say it's killing me. I don't ever see him anymore, since he lives quite a few towns away from me. I just can't forget about him. Last week I had a dream that we met again and we talked forever and it was as though we were back at Xi'an. But two nights ago I had the most emotionally draining and baffling dream I had ever had. Wanna hear about it? It was that he had died, and I was at his funeral, sobbing uncontrollably. The grass was a bright shade of green, and there were high brick walls surrounding the cemetery. I was just walking along, sobbing, and I heard someone say that it was liver disease that killed him (yes, my dreams are quite descriptive) but someone else said no, it was his girlfriend that shot him. It really was the latter. The scene changed and I was with his girlfriend and we were going through his items. I found a journal somewhere, and it turned out to be the one he used in China (which, in the dream, looked just like the one I had used in China). I flipped through it and saw that he stopped writing halfway through the trip (or perhaps this was guilty on my part, since I myself stopped halfway), but the penultimate page had a letter hastily written on it. It was addressed to me, written the day after we came home. The basic sentiment was that he loved me, but because he had a girlfriend he couldn't do anything (he was always so faithful) and he had been waiting for me to say something first. The dream ended with me clutching the journal to my chest, crying (so what else is new?), and realizing that I never told him how I felt. I woke up highly affected by it, and the entire day I was preposterously sad about the whole affair and I couldn't get my mind around why it was so draining on me while I was awake. (The last and only time before this that a dream messed with my mood the next day was when I had a dream that Rowan Atkinson was on Scrubs, a show I don't watch but is supposed to be quite funny, and I woke up laughing in my sleep. This made me happy all day.) What did I do? Aside from attending the midnight premiere of Mamma Mia! (one of my favourite movies ever, I've seen it twice and it came out...today), I wrote a song about it, to examine it, and I also wrote to the boy and told him I love him. No reply yet. But, the point is that here's the song:

you came to me In a dream last night
first you hugged me and We talked, I cried
then it changed and somehow you had died
the cemetery was green in the sunLight
but I was sobbing 'cause the world was Less bright*
they told us you were sick but they had lied
it was your girlfriend, she shot you three times
there were so maNy friends there to say goodbyE

CHORUS:
And I realized
I neVer got the chance to tEll you how much I love you
and although I pretended I didn't, it was only you I saw
I was too shy to say it
so I left it the way it was
and I tRied to wait for you to say something first
but now you're gone and it's far too late
the summer we met and I fell in love
I never told you how much it meant

It was another scene and I was with your girl
we were going through your things but I hated her
I wanted to know so I asked your girl
why she shot you, what she did it For
she acted smug, like she didn't know why
someOne would make up a true lie
there was a pile of books and on top, a journal
I flipped through it and found a letteR
it was written when you came home that summer
addressed to me, probably never meant to be sent
but I read it now and this is what it said

CHORUS:
Baby, I realized
I never got the chance to tell you how much I love you
and althouGh I pretended I didn't, it was only you I saw
I was too shy to say it
so I lEft it the way it was
I tried to wait for you to say something first
but you never did and I had a girlfriend
and now we're aparT and I know it's too late
it's unfinished business and it'll stay that way
the summeR we met and I fell in love
I never told you how much it meant

I closed the bOok and held it to my chest
and realized that in my dream, you were dead
But I was glad I had found the letter I read
'cause I knew it was me you loved instead
I woke up then and I knew it's true
there was never anything for me to do
it was only the summer and I'll never see you
I knew it was a dream, that you never loved me
But It's okay, the dream was real Enough

*I wrote a song about him (one of many), called "Less Bright," written after I found out about his girlfriend. Slight allusion, for my own amusement.

If you sing the words to the melody of "All I Want Is You" from Juno, it should fit. I woke up with that melody echoing in my head, and so I, slightly unconsciously, wrote it to fit.

Once again, I need all of the criticism I can get. Thank you for the musik.

NBK