I dreamed of a mocha frappuccino

My heart hurts. I just found out someone I was once infatuated with (someone explain the difference between infatuation and love) is married and has a child. It's strange, feeling at all hurt by this. The wound had healed--it was just a tiny scar. If only he had been nice to me; I would have gotten to know him, really known him, and become quickly indifferent.
My forehead's hot. I think I have a fever. My face feels sunburned. It's silly to put silly people on pedestals. It's silly to put anyone on a pedestal. I won't do it anymore!
Yes I will. I am doing it. But they're all better people than that married man. I'm improving, slowly.
I hate wedding rings. I see a ring on a finger and some nerve ending in my brain begins to fire. I see "unattainable" written all over a man, and suddenly I think he's wonderful.
Who are the attainable men? Who could I actually deign to love who would ever really love me back?

Tea for Two

I see you.
I’ve always seen you.
I’ve seen you walking past a woman
with red hair; often you have smiled
as you passed but never raised your eyes.
I’ve seen you sit alone
at dinner, or for tea,
my solitary darling, nibbling
your biscotti and careful of crumbs.
I see you now.
You scratch your nose. You tap
your foot to the rhythm of some internal song
(something in ¾ time, I think).
You do not know you do these things,
but, of course, you do.
I imagine walking through the door, or wall,
which separates you and me.
What conversations we would have!
I think we’d be content to gaze at one another
in congenial silence. You might take
my hand. You wouldn’t be You anymore,
nor I, I.

The Mourning Doves

I dreamed of mourning doves yesterday. There was a pair of them--in my dream, it was important to know they are monogamous, so this particular set had paired off for life. The male dove was ill--he could no longer fly well, and rather than leave him, the female dove flew nervously around him, pushing him gently with her beak, trying to get him up and flying. It was no use. He was in distress, flapping and dying, and she stayed with him, though he had perched on a picnic table and was easy prey for my dog, who I was walking as I observed them. 

The female became listless. It seemed to me that she was willing herself to die because she knew her life-mate--the bird she'd chosen to nest with for her life--was dying. She no longer cared. If she did not get eaten by a dog or a cat, she'd just lie down there and starve.

I saw this and was horrified by it--and at the same time, was powerless. I don't know why. I had no way to help the male, who was beyond human care, and I knew no matter what I did, the female would grieve over him.

Two pigeons flew over to the mourning doves, and began tussling the female, trying to get her to fly away, to save herself. She wouldn't. She let them peck at her. So the pigeons took the male dove, who had died, in their beaks and flew away with him. They knew the female would follow her dead mate, that perhaps they could get her up higher and give her a fighting chance.

I woke after that--I don't know what happened to the female mourning dove--and though I was just an observer, I could feel her grief--this horrible, deep, overwhelming grief that your life is ending because someone else's has.