Assuming

"This is a little strange."

"What is?"

"This art imitating life imitating art imitating life imitating art..."

"I get it."

"I'm not sure how I feel about this."

"You should just start writing the life you want and maybe it will happen the way you want."

"Hmm, maybe; but I don't know if what I want is really what's best for me."

"Look at you."

"I wouldn't mind if it happened though."

"You'd better watch yourself." 

"That's what you're for."

"So what, are you just assuming I'm going to keep you straight?"

"Pretty much. Yeah." 

"Maybe you shouldn't assume so much."

Patience

"Archimedes? I'm calling you for real this time."

"Your timing is most inconvenient, I was about to go out for the night, since you commanded my attention last night."

"Please?"

He can't turn away from the despair in my pleading. 

"Okay. Qu'est-ce qui se passe?"

"Am I really that tired that I'm thinking in French?"

"Apparently, but it probably wouldn't be a good idea to hold this conversation in another language."

"I agree."

Sincere for once, he snuggles into his feathers and focuses his gaze on me, "You wish you'd never had that conversation, don't you?"

"It was helpful in the beginning, but then it started to take a bad turn. She just didn't understand."

"But you did learn something, didn't you? "

"Yes, I learned that I still have trust issues? He promised me and I didn't trust."

"That was even deeper than what I was going for. Good girl."

"I learned that I don't have to change, that I can be myself."

"You just wish you could be yourself with the right sort of people."

I can only sigh, and look away. 

"Enter trust and faith. You should try keeping them in your pocket, or wearing them on your wrist. Then we might be able to get over these conversations."

"I just wish..."

"You wish what?"

"I feel like there are two halves of myself, equally important but there isn't a person for both of them. It's one or the other. I have to give up one for the other."

"And you don't want to give up either?"

"No, but there is only one I would absolutely never give up, but I can't imagine He would ask me to give up the other half for one."

"He hasn't. Remember?"

"Yes. But I worry that if I give up one, I'll repeat history and hurt someone. I refuse to hurt someone the way I've watched others be hurt."

"You would rather be alone than hurt someone else?"

"Absolutely. I won't do that. I respect him too much."

"Who?"

For a second, I don't recognize that he'd asked me a question, "You know."

"No I don't."

"You just want to hear me say it."

"I'll spare you. This is what I'm hearing from you: You don't want to give up your other half and risk hurting someone else the way others you love have been hurt. Even if you do have a perfect option, you love and respect too much to put anyone at risk. You're scared of what might happen. So instead, you're going to spend the rest of your life wandering the world trying to find alternate methods of fulfilling your divine talent of caregiving. You'll never be complete if you keep two halves and you'll never be complete if you don't."

His hearing is so good, he heard the things I didn't even say. Still, I can only look away. 

He flies to my shoulder and gently grips my skin, "I'm going to add to the usual prescription."

"Which is?"

"Trust..."

"Oh yeah. What are we adding?"

"Patience."

Trusting

"Back again so soon?"

"I still maintain that you come to me, not the other way around."

"You just keep tellin' yourself that. Maybe one of these days it will come true."

"Did you just apostrophize a word?"

"No"

"Yes you did. You need to get out of the city, or at least spend your free time in better company. Let's not contribute to the degradation of the English language."

"It's dialect. It's why you just had to change the spelling of 'degradation' from 'degredation'." He suddenly beats his wings in frustration. "Don't change the subject. I'm here on business."

I groan. Being around Archimedes seems to elicit this sort of response. "Okay, what are discussing today."

"Your latest."

"My latest what? Meal? Adventure? Mistake?"

"Mistake? Is that what it is?"

"I didn't say that."

"So, tell me about this dream you had."

"Oh, my latest dream?"

"Or something like that."

"I don't get it."

"I want to you to tell me about your dream."

"No, I get that. I don't get my dream."

"Neither do I. Maybe you should ask Him about it."

"If you don't get it, why did you bring it up?"

"Do you really have to ask that after our last conversation?"

As much as these conversations make me want to poke my eyes out with pencils, they work. I get it, "You were just reminding me."

"You're getting good at this."

"Yeah, well..."

"Go on, you can say it." He puffs out his chest, tawny feathers disturbed.

"Say what?"

"If you don't know, then I'm not going to tell you."

"Well that's mature."

"What I mean is: If you don't know, you're not as good as I thought."

"You mean you wanted me to say what a great teacher you are?"

"There you go."

"You know you're just a figment of my imagination."

"Shhh... don't say it." 

"Just because I don't say it doesn't mean it isn't true."

He starts bobbing his head, getting a better grasp on his branch. 

"Getting restless," I ask.

"Fancy a stroll?"

"No." 

"You don't mince words do you?"

"Right to the point. You still haven't told me why you're here."

"You tell me."

I give him a stare somewhere between annoyed and intensely bored. This is getting old fast, I think.

"This time it's different."

"From the last time? How so?"

"I'm more the person I am when I'm with myself."

"The person you never show anyone?"

"Yep. It's not like I thought it would be."

"How did you think it would be?"

"Like certain dark things..."

"Ohhh...You're learning all sorts of new things aren't you?"

"It's like someone poured me full of stars and new galaxies being born."

"..."

"Oh my..."

"Do you realize what you just said?"

"Yes."

"Keep going."

"It's like one long sunrise, where the whole earth is waking up continually within me to a beautiful new day. It's soft and sweet and vulnerable. Have you ever been on the beach and found a starfish and poked it to watch it curl up?"

"I generally stay away from the beach."

"It's like that."

"That's a really awkward analogy, don't you think?"

"I didn't say this would inspire any sort of brilliancy on my part. That's what happens when you're filled with champagne."

He looks at me as if to say, Really?

"Ugh, not literally, you know that. What I mean is that I feel like someone filled me with fizzy water and pop-rocks and put springs on my feet and jumping beans in my stomach."

"You're disgusting." 

"Hey!!" 

"Where's your rhapsodizing?" 

I take a deep breath, "Let's start from the beginning."

"Good idea."

"It's like someone poured me full of brightly burning, luminescent stars that shoot off their silver shine; and that whole galaxies with their fiery, vivid hues are being born inside of me. It's like a Chinese New Year celebration of fireworks dancing and twirling in some haphazardly choreographed finale. It's like being set out on the ocean with nothing to carry you but the waves and not even caring. It's like clay that's been hard and brittle for so long becoming soft again, ready to be reshaped. It's like finding yourself on the edge of a parapet, ready to jump, trusting that someone will be at the bottom to catch you."

"Trusting, eh?"

"We'll leave that for another day."