PostPoems Be Artistic. Be Creative. Be Inspired!

It's good to be able to see your face again. I doubt you often think about the time we spent together, but I do. I do most days, in fact. I struggle to keep the sound of your voice distinct in the overlapping folds of my memory. Your proportions will some times bulge and some times thin through my recollective lens, but this is due to our separation, spanning years now. Before I stopped wishing on loose eye lashes or vague starlight, I would often plead to the nothingness for you to desire me, more than you ever did. More than you ever desired anyone. I wanted you to need me so desperately that you would not be able to help seeking me out, retreating back into my open arms and proclaiming yourself as mine and mine alone.

I drove you off and turned cold because I knew I was falling in love with you, and knew that your own love was tentative, hesitant and maybe not even actually there at all. Despite all of this hatred I some times feel for myself I knew that I made you glad -- that I could unlock things in you that had been slumbering for some time. But it never seemed like it was enough to harden the glue that tried to bind us when we laid together, naked and laughing and staring into each others eyes without the slightest hint of discomfort. You told me that you were falling for me, and that this was not supposed to happen; that I was forcing you to break rules that had been cast in the weakest mold imaginable. I hadn't even the vaguest idea of what to expect from you when you were forced to decline my invitation, only to extend a new one of your own. What followed were days so full of promise and hope that I thought, "Finally, all of this bad luck is turning around. Finally, I have someone that can chase all of the darkening clouds away."

These days I often torture myself with thoughts of gliding back into your embrace, and reclaiming my rightful place in the gulping valley formed by your bare arms, legs and torso. I imagine what your current shape must be like; how solid and healthy you've become, and what unbelievable insights you've gleaned from what has surely been numerous trips across country and ocean. I remember the ease of our first encounter -- how indescribably natural it had all seemed. I also struggle not to debase myself for losing my grasp on you. The regret I feel is some times staggering, but all too familiar now. Maybe it'll never leave, never fade. To be honest, I'm not sure that I want it to. If it did, would I lose sight of how incredible you made me feel? How fascinating, how strong, how intelligent and how appealing YOU made me believe I was? I fall back on these memories in times of great strife, and though they aren't enough to placate me in the face of all of my insecurities; I am still aware that you believed in what you said. Every word that fell from your lips, I hung on it. Every action, I observed with intense, some times feverish concentration. I wanted to be there to catch you when you fell, but you never did. You were a beautiful, walking success story. And since our chapter closed, I can only begin to imagine what you have gone on to accomplish.

If I were a braver or more reckless young man, I might risk showing you these words. But the deep well of pessimism in me which I try so hard to defy, speaks bitterly of the idea. How I wish I would have simply used that word when things had already begun to unravel. That word, 'love', which means so little to so many and so much to so few. That word, which suffers such flippant abuse by people who choose to avoid or misunderstand it. Or, maybe it's me who has suffered misunderstanding. But It doesn't matter, because what I know of love, was encapsulated by you. And though I'm sure you've gone on to discover other men who are a thousand times my better, some part of me still holds out hope that there may be a small, neat shrine built into your head - one that has a picture of me, standing as its crown.

I loved you, Kathleen. I guess I still do. I hope you're well, and happy.