{"id":5685,"date":"2026-07-02T02:49:04","date_gmt":"2026-07-02T02:49:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/2026\/07\/02\/in-my-dreams\/"},"modified":"2026-07-02T02:49:07","modified_gmt":"2026-07-02T02:49:07","slug":"in-my-dreams","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/2026\/07\/02\/in-my-dreams\/","title":{"rendered":"In my dreams"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In my dreams, I am not afraid to hold her hand. I hold it in delight and pride. I am not afraid of her warmth upon my body. The tenderness of her touch, the delicacy of her fingers, the softness of her skin against mine. In my dreams, we stay like this forever. Perhaps we lie beneath the sunny sky in a vast meadow, among vibrant peonies or <a href=\"https:\/\/elfinspell.com\/ClassicalTexts\/Poetry\/AnyteOfTegea-Sappho\/Storer-Sappho.html\">violets<\/a> or sweet-smelling roses. Perhaps we lie beneath the moonlight, too, blessed by the constellations in the heavens. The fields of stars are watching us, only us. She is holding my hand; I am not afraid of it.<\/p>\n<p class=\"has-text-align-right wp-block-paragraph\">                In my dreams, I can breathe next to her \u2014 <em>it feels so nice to finally breathe \u2014 <\/em>     and I am weightless in the airflow. I fall into it; I glide through the peaceful breeze.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I fall into her embrace.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And her hand is in mine. In my dreams, I exist <em>with <\/em>her.\u00a0<\/p>\n<aside class=\"scaip scaip-1    \">\n\t\t<\/aside>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I am not forced to be nothing but an idea to <em>them<\/em> \u2014 \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/genius.com\/Flatsound-i-exist-i-exist-i-exist-lyrics\"><em>I exist; I exist; I exist; I exist<\/em><\/a><em>\u201d \u2014<\/em> I am not their olive-skinned fantasy, caged to fulfill their unspoken desires and needs. I exist <em>with <\/em>them, not <em>for <\/em>them. I am not their<a href=\"https:\/\/www.poetryfoundation.org\/poetrymagazine\/poems\/56952\/to-love-as-aswang\"> loyal Filipina wife<\/a>, expected to declaw my fangs and soften my<a href=\"https:\/\/www.poetryfoundation.org\/poetrymagazine\/poems\/56953\/to-be-walang-hiya\"> gum-smacking glamour and armor<\/a> up, just to keep their oppressive white hands on mine. My roots don\u2019t wither <em>for<\/em> them.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">She helps me stand up.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">They don\u2019t tell me to wash my mouth; their lips \u2014 a dampened sponge \u2014 glide across my body until my skin is bleached clean into their design. They don\u2019t suck the sacred language from my tongue, trapping <a href=\"https:\/\/poems.com\/poem\/dear-brown-girl\/#:~:text=some%20brown%20cow%20best%20left%20in%20darkness.\">inelegant noises<\/a> beneath them as they make me listen to their clever talk about color and inclusion. I am not their concept, their idea or their wish \u2014 something they must protect on a high pedestal so I can shine conveniently for their friends. They don\u2019t leave me as \u201csome brown cow best left in darkness\u201d if I tell them, \u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">She helps me <em>stand up.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In my dreams, she was holding my hand; she was holding me close. We were lying beneath the dancing stars.\u00a0<\/p>\n<aside class=\"scaip scaip-2    \">\n\t\t<\/aside>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And then I wake up.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Her hand was still in mine.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And it\u2019s just us \u2014 only us. We are lying in bed together, and she whispers, \u201cgood morning,\u201d and I can breathe next to her. <em>It\u2019s so nice to finally breathe. <\/em>Perhaps we let the hours pass, talking endlessly through the dawn. She whispers all the things she loves dearly to me, and the words flow out of her mouth like poetry.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We talk about our tasks for the day, the mundane list of what we need to complete. We talk about our future goals, our dreams, our passions \u2014 all the things we strive to achieve. We listen to each other. We understand one another deeply. She is holding my hand; she is holding me close.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And I am at ease.\u00a0<\/p>\n<aside class=\"scaip scaip-3    \">\n\t\t<\/aside>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>MiC Columnist River Strasner can be reached at <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.michigandaily.com\/michigan-in-color\/in-my-dreams\/mailto:strasnrr@umich.edu\"><em>strasnrr@umich.edu<\/em><\/a><em>.<\/em><\/p>\n<aside>\n\t\t<\/aside>\n<p><h3 class=\"jp-relatedposts-headline\"><em>Related articles<\/em><\/h3>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In my dreams, I am not afraid to hold her hand. I hold it in delight and pride. I am not afraid of her warmth upon my body. The tenderness of her touch, the delicacy of her fingers, the softness of her skin against mine. In my dreams, we stay like this forever. Perhaps we [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5686,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[4450],"class_list":["post-5685","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-dreams"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5685","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5685"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5685\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5687,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5685\/revisions\/5687"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5686"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5685"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5685"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}