still searching

I know I’ll be leaving alone. I wish I could take your letters with me, your smiles, your caring hands. I wish I could still remember your face in fifty years. I wish you would remember me, too. But most of all I wish I could stay.

I still have your old number in my phone, even though I know it’s different now. I like the illusion that I can always choose to hear your voice again. I keep your goodbye card in the drawer in my nightstand. I read it when I’m crying so I can cry a little more. I keep the cardigan you hugged me in even though it’s worn out. Sometimes I put it on and pretend it remembers your arms.

your hands on my chest, sleeping, dreaming of when I could be touched without warning. a body of sorrow, weeping inside of me, barely touching my borders. my skin separates you from it, protecting us both from one another. I want to tear it off and show you every vein, every subcutaneous scar, but your hands would wake and go away, so I keep still and hold a universe inside.

letting go of you will be the hardest thing I ever do. I thought I saw you roaming around the woods, but you were a tree, a giant, evergreen. our past has flecks of gold, you held me without touch, with words alone. the earth is black as coal where I made the promise that I broke.

sometimes I see you again in my sleep I meet you in forests, under canopies on grey beaches, in waiting rooms. sometimes I pass you in the street as our shoulders softly brush. would you recognise me if I told you I still miss you? would you blankly stare or would you embrace me like you did when we said goodbye? I would give a thousand Christmases to see your face again.

your celestial body is floating above mine, reflecting the light of the sun. your mouth tastes like strawberry jam, your voice sounds like Christmas on a quiet snowy day. astronomers believe the sun had a twin star and lost it. I think we’re like that, light years apart and still I see you in dreams, no distance can undo us. born from the same nebula, we share our stardust. never touching, always travelling in ever larger circles.

a wave of sad prose hits my ankles as I’m standing on the beach. the tide is rising. streams run upwards to my calves, my knees, my hips, as high as they can go.   they enclose me in a see-through shield of words. I walk into the sea, a sacred storybook. I read its tales with my fingertips.   I lose touch with the earth, I fall upward into the black water. for a moment I am whole, no gravity, just buoyancy embracing me, lovingly sustaining me.

your smile could save a million drowning men. your touch would cure my ceaseless sadness. I know this, for your eyes quench my thirst for a short while. your hands look soft enough not to burn my tender skin.     I want to make a home for both our souls to share our solitude. I want you to teach me what forever feels like.

you blend in with the flowers painted on your walls, you speak to them in quiet tones. your marble skin breaks when I caress it. I want to find what’s inside you, I want to hold it. I look for its pieces on the floor. they’re black and bony. I try to put you back together without them.

I regret letting you go when we held onto each other on the train, to stay upright. you promised I’d see you again, and I did a million times. I wish you’d see me too, I wish you’d hold me again. I wish there was another shaky train or wobbly boat and another journey to make.

I wish I could touch you, I wish the space between us wasn’t there. I wish I knew you as a human, could discover you like a child. play on your beaches, hide in your ribcage. I wish I could love you without limits.

you are the sun on a crisp winter day in December, with fresh snow on the roads. it melts away when you look at it, like me it disappears in little streams. I evaporate and form an ice cloud close to you. I rise until I fall and it begins again.

spring is falling off the trees again and I’m back to my bad habits. dreaming of you, lying under apple trees with our fingers entwined. waiting for dead wood to blossom. chiseling away at my heart to make a mosaic for you. I’ll never learn, as long as you’re listening. we’re the most beautiful impossibility I know.  

between your lungs lies a winding road that leads to your ochre soul. it twists around your ribs, I follow it with my fingers. your soul feels soft and spongy. I ask you why you put it in a cage, you say it’s for protection. I free it and it flies away, leaving your body cold and still like marble.

your dress is the colour of orange juice on a Sunday morning. tenderly, it hugs your waist. your perfume sounds like autumn leaves skipping in the wind. they write fairytales about girls like you. they lock you up in the highest towers. I would come to save you, but for the princess, they always write a prince. your voice is the colour of a light day in January. clouds float in your eyes, looking like rain. you stare at me, quietly singing.

can we go back to when summer was forever, can we lie down in the reed and will everything be the same? shall we count the constellations in each other’s eyes and climb trees until we reach the heavens? will you see me as I was, in my yellow dress with buttercups?

I made my home in the trenches, in the graves of wounded men. I used up all my guts longing for safety. I was startled when you offered me your hand, asking me why I buried myself but I let you dig me out and dust me off. I found a new home with you, and now my fear is that you’ll leave and I’ll be buried once again.