Shereen’s.

and i could try to hide it, but the ache is inevitable. i wait for it to take me. i wait, like i always do.

and so i wait. it’s going to come, i know: the final act. curtains, credits, whatever you want to call it. there is a finish line and past it, there is a life where i can no longer claim your name in my poems. i hang onto the ache instead. i don’t know how to let go of it, yet.

i don’t remember the day, really, but that’s the only thing that slips my mind. everything else, i recall. so very vividly bright. i’m getting another dress made, same colour. the symmetry only dawned on me a few days ago, just on the cusp of december. and how the last time i wore a dress of that colour was the december you split me wide open. and the last time i wore that silk was that cold march night; i remember. the coldest night. winter lingering with a tight grip. a glimpse; the song that was playing in the background. the cold breeze and the empty postcards, and birthday candles in a burger. i think i carry the hurt, still, somewhere within. i like to pretend i don’t, but it seeps through, against my best attempts to coneal it. i wrapped myself in velvet. in blacks and blues. i hid myself, as always, as usual. i always remember what i’m wearing, when these things happen. i put the gold away after that, unconsciously, perhaps. i lost my favourite scarf in another continent; i thought about the december i wore it when i first met you. my velvet skirt and combat boots. i can still see you eyeing me across the room. i can still hear the words you’ve said. these caramel-filled chocolate pieces melting in my mouth; the first poem i’d written about something real, and how it tasted, and how it lingered. i don’t remember what day it is anymore. i could look it up, if i wanted. i could write a poem about it again, how the forgetting of the day is another loss. my grip slipping on the heartache; this thing i had been grasping with iron-tight fists, the only proof i had that i had lived through it. i don’t want to, not anymore, not really. i think about the days ahead, instead. the scent of perfumes in the air. the coziness of sitting in the backseat of a car between my friends, speeding down a highway to go home. the first glimpse of sunset when i walk out of the door. i think about the dress, the same colour, and the way it will wrap me up, and the way time is a circle, and how i keep coming back to you, and how i don’t want to write about it anymore, and how i drift away, and there’s a possibility, for the first time, that i might breeze through this december with a light heart, without a poem about you, without forcing myself into the shadows.