To Remember Love

I am remembering love.

Forgetting would be easier if there was a villain. 

I think of you all the time. 

Your face materializes in jazz horns and classical strings. 

Sometimes I wonder how different the music would sound

had I been prepared to take the stage you made your playground.  

Would our song be carried in the wind, lifted by a steady count that never ends? 

Or would it fade like a tired singer whose voice finally gives out?

Am I enough became a motif I resisted, with scarred palms as proof. 

I struggle with moving on because love is not so easily disposed.

I am at peace with calling it love, another name would not be worthy.  

I savored every drop like the first meal after famine. 

How much time has passed before breaking my fast with you?

We brunched at your favorite spot, hungry for each other’s company.

Going home, we stopped at the sight of carefully wrapped arrangements. 

I gifted a dozen long-stem roses, the deepest shade of red, texture smooth as velvet. 

The perfect symbol of how it felt to watch our love blossom. 

It’s easy to rush the process when everything feels so right. 

One time you rushed down your hallway,

stopping the elevator’s flight as I entered to leave. 

We had our first heart-to-heart, and 

you gift-wrapped a bittersweet goodbye kiss

to let me know no matter what was said, 

this did not have to be the end. 

We had routine movie moments, a highlight reel from timeless cinema we dared to create.  

The game nights, the long walks, the honest talks of brightness the future could bring.

How fluent our bodies spoke when words failed to convey true meaning.

The prayers that covered us in a world ravaged by ill-intention.

Our far-fetched, star-crossed romance a script even Shakespeare would have struggled to conceive.

In you, I found safety to peel back my strongest & weakest parts.

In me, you found tender care for a rich and protected heart. 

But reality became too much, too fast, a recurring flow of unease. 

It’s hard to invest in potential, unwise to stake claim on land that’s unseen.

It doesn’t feel fair. I resist tropes of why me. I question myself a million times,

do I dare eat a peach? 

All the years I’ve allowed to pass like rising tides eroding the beach. 

It gives me a double shot of sadness. One for us, two for me.

It would be easier if there was a villain. 

But i am not & neither are you. 

I am a looped reel of remembering love. 

Soft shapes and warm hues projected on silver screens. 

I understand the past cannot be undone,

I am evolving for a future filled with possibility, 

and surrender to God’s wisdom to know the differences between. 

One day at a time, one moment stacked against the next, 

none of it, none of it 

I take for granted. 

I am thankful for the brief time we captured

like lightening in a bottle

and every rose petal in imperfect hands

so fortunate to blossom.

If I reached across the sands of time, I can still feel their velvet skin, 

and find myself lost within

the song of a rose

with your scent.