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Lovely
Lovely
By Muriel Palanca
I can never love you more than I do now.
I won’t let myself, because
I tasted her on your lips tonight. She tasted like
Summer watermelons and golden apples,
Like saltwater from an unexplored ocean,
Or maybe it was remnants of your guilt.
And it was bittersweet, one more so than the other
But I can’t decide.
Her scent of lilac floats like wisps of a midnight cigarette,
Carried in your firm embrace; the one you always give me
When you are trying to hide your mistakes.
But I can feel her with the beating of your heart
As I press against your chest.
She thunders inside you, warming you like the glowing
Hearth of a winter’s fire, creating a network of sparks
In the canyons of your solitude.
You never let me in. Your armor remained too unyielding for me to
Break through.
But she did.
She painted you like a battle does a soldier,
Leaving scars of your victory.
She left her signature on your neck, scored your back with her promises
And reignited the dying twinkle in your eyes.
She touched you where I could never reach and
You spilled your secrets between her cotton sheets. You gave her
Everything.
And the more you pushed me away,
The more you pulled her back because you never want to lose her.
She’s lovely.
And you never belonged to me.
