You walked into the room and tore me inside out with your smile

I wasn’t expecting anything but to serve you tea, but my soul lay spilling itself onto the kitchen floor

Which neither your presence nor your absence could cure.

You told me jokes and lifted me out of the dark river that I was drowning in

I stood dripping and shivering before you

There was no hiding my absolute terror that I had recognized you and that you maybe did not know me at all

So familiar was your essence

Lifetimes had not erased the imprint of your touch on my skin

I left myself open to the raw agony of falling in love with my perfectly orchestrated hope

That I might have you, if I did not appear so vulnerable; so desperate for another smile

But your smiles were freely given, your laughter a symphony of birdsong,

Your stories like salve on a blistering burn

Your lips like fire where they touched my cheek as you said you’d see me later

It’s what you said the last time you left me

Then moments turned to centuries

But I never stopped waiting for you

Later was always too long, now was always too short

Your love was not mine to have, I belonged to Him

But I planned to steal every morsel because it was like manna and I was a starving sparrow

I had known you before, when time was younger

When mountains were sharper

When witches were burned and men left to plunder

Your touch was familiar, your mind, mine to wander

I could argue with Fate

But She’d laugh if I told Her

That you were illegal, the drug to my hunger

Your kindness carved pathways through my heart like water over stone

Like broken bones, my resolve lay splintered

I could not stay to the good, to the right

Could not decline your touch

I wanted to lay myself at your mercy

To give you the things you had whispered through the phone

I waded too deep, into the river once more

Willing to drown in the crime that you offered

Deep into the swirling current of our resurrected passion

Until I cried, I am yours, I am yours

Remember me? I am yours!

Relephant read:

Echoes of Dylan: Poem for a Long Lost Love.

Author: Monika Carless

Editor: Ashleigh Hitchcock

Photo: flickr