in all the time i've spent with you,
i've always been aware it was temporary.

i know it all whithers and fades,
and we don't acknowledge it.
like an elephant in the room,
it is too big to ignore,
too obvious to mention.

out of convenience or chance,
i'm not sure how it happened.
i remember the feeling of wanting you
before i ever thought i could.
getting you never seemed tangible,
and when it was, it still didn't feel tactile.
(touching you has always been a sacred gesture,
your eyes are like marble stone,
your fingers like silken threads.)

i wonder how it will be
when i can only remember you.
i know that once you leave you won't come back,
and i have made the promise to myself
not to burn the pictures,
so instead i will hold them gingerly,
not letting myself look too hard.

will i remember the dancing?
or the way your body shook like vibrato
when i made you laugh?
will i remember cheap wine out of bottles,
and the drowning, drowning, drowning
into late nights, early mornings.

will i remember hesitant conversations,
where we looked down and half-smiled,
shared cigarettes and changed the subjects quickly?

will i remember your anger?
the way your eyebrows curled together
and your lips got very tight before you left the room?
or the first time that i reached my fingers
up the back-side of your shirt and felt you shiver
as i breathed into your spine?

or will i remember swaying on my bedroom floor,
so as not to see her falling in love with you
right there on my mattress?
or will i let myself go back to that
only to remember how you looked at me
while she was stroking your hair?

will i remember walking into the hallway
of my house, too-big with understanding,
as she grabbed your face and kissed you, full on?
or the way my chest sunk to my gut
as i drunkenly cried on the staircase,
only to run away when you followed me out.

or will i remember the way you whispered into my neck
as you kissed away the realizations,
telling me you were confused?

i fear i will remember it all,
remember it all.

and you?
will you remember what it was,
before the fall?

12/12/2005

Posted on 12/13/2005
Copyright © 2024 Lauren Singer