The power of music has been well documented by many throughout history. Music has the power to transcend language, creed, and borders, in order to connect us by a simple feeling evoked by words and a melody. Art is a beautiful, wondrous medium in all of it’s forms and I am continually thankful for the solace it has granted me throughout my life.

It is no secret and has not been for quite some time that I am a gay man. I spent so much of my childhood grappling with my identity and not being able to see myself in the dreams I was supposed to have about my own future. We are all conditioned to imagine our own futures through a heteronormative lens and seldom were other opportunities apparent. While I was busy trying to figure myself out, others were gaining experiences and connecting in ways that I desperately craved to understand. So I attempted to discover myself through secret crushes on boys that felt all consuming at times. I imagined worlds and scenarios where I had the courage to speak up, to make that move or watch him make the move I wished he would make. I would wonder if a boy felt the same way as I did. That his heart and his mind hadn’t caught up with the other and if they would, maybe something would happen. So I held out hope for many and continued to dream about others. This tendency has carried into my adult life, albeit in a different way.

I am proud of who I am but I find myself lacking both in courage and in the conviction to express my feelings. Or to simply take a chance and see if something meaningful can grow out of a simple introduction. This probably stems from my childhood and teenage years, my tendency to imagine the multitude of scenarios at the expense of letting life pass me by, romantically at least. I dream of finding a man that feels just as passionately about life as I do, a man that isn’t afraid to dream.

My tendency to whisk myself into a dreamlike state is maybe part of the reason why I feel so attached to Ariana Grande and her music. So much of her music evokes a dream like quality. To Ariana, love is like a dream. Sometimes bad, sometimes good, but never failing to be alluring. Ariana’s “dreampop” is perfectly encapsulated by “Imagine” which was just released a few hours ago.(Probably later after I post this).

Ariana gives a breathtaking vocal performance that is both intimate yet simultaneously other-wordly. The verses are soft snapshots of a relationship that is idyllic in its portrayal of love