on To Dream

When explaining this poem, I say that it is simply about those dreams you have when you're in love with someone, and how when you wake up you realise it never happened. In this case it was a real person whom I had adapted into a character.

The character's name is Theodore, and he comes originally from a story I was thinking about, inspired by Minuit's The Boy With The Aubergine Hair. That story mutated a couple of times until it arrived in its current form. Originally it was just Theodore and Dominique, travelling down south, in love. Then it was entirely set in Wellington, and Theodore had a girlfriend, whom he was moving in with - leaving Dominique, who had been his flatmate previously. In the current incarnation, Theodore's affair is with Julie, who is an even older character. Dominique is still the flatmate, Katrina still the girlfriend, and it really fits the song a lot better, adding Julie in. Julie's Theodore was taken from a boy who used to work in a local bookstore. The poem makes reference to this.

There is an older poem I recovered recently, that seems to me to be about the same thing, even though it was written with somewhat different intentions. Here is that poem:

Wishes

I wish to go to sleep now
I wish to hide away
I wish I did not miss you
You I do not know you
I wish that I did

I wish not to think now
I do wish to dream now
I wish to dream of you
You are my dream now
I wish I could see you

I wish I could hold you
In my mind memories of you
I wish I could keep those
No fear I would lose you
I wish that memories would not fade

I wish for your visage when I close my eyes
I wish that I knew you
I don't even know you
So why do I miss you
Fear to forget you
Wish I could hold you
In memory, if not in truth

I wish to talk to you
I hope I dream of you
I wish I could know you
Love you
If only in my mind