Thought of you today.
It wasn’t my fault - I was asked to remember you.
Anyway, found this bit collecting dust among my drafts, so I thought I’d finally post. I remember this pain feeling, being very real, very raw. Now it, and you, seem so distant. Two and a half lifetimes ago, or at least two thirds the world away.
How long will you be a part of my poetry? How long until you no longer are? How long will I have to write until you are nevermore the blue blue ink that flows bluely from my pen? How long will I have to paint until I stop
trying
to mix those stock colours to match your eyes? How long will I have to dance until your voice ceases to be the only melody by which I am moved? How long? How long until my art belongs to me again?
I know that should that day come, it will be very lonely. But it’s all I have left and at least it will be mine.
I can confidently say you are no longer in my writing, in my poetry. You are, however, still part of my dancing. Sometimes I feel particularly performative offstage, just in rehearsal or class. Sometimes I realize this is due to an imagined gaze. Yours. Like the time you watched me learn a solo. There is now never a selfish solo for me. I either want to share it with you, or shove it in your face. Or, I don’t remember you at all. My fonder thoughts of you and I irrupt and lift me high enough to fly as I turn and twirl. You can follow the seams along my satin dreams and remember I was once a girl.
