a soft love

I write this under the moon, putting ink on paper like Icarus once stuck wax to his wings.

My heart is warmest when I think of you, of the soft lines of your face, the crinkling skin around your smile, the laughter I used to draw from you with my siren-like determination.

I feel a droplet trickle down my cheek with an almost careful slowness as I place these words together. Some seem to be missing like puzzle pieces that have slipped under a cushion, behind the couch, swept away by hurried footsteps.

My chest aches the most at the memory of you. A once beautiful house abandoned and left for nature to claim, dust to cover, eeriness to creep across.

I have sat here to formulate a thank you because when have I been happier than when we were passing jokes between us, humour balancing on the corner of my upturned lips?

Because I thought I had been irreparably hollow, drained of love like a drought-ridden desert until I stumbled across you.

Because you taught me the tender side of love. The side that doesn’t end with bloodshed and torn skin. The side that doesn’t leave you screaming - just swallowing a bittersweet taste of goodbyes and gratitude.

I am trying to say thank you without writing I miss you, trying to say that you are the kindest muse without lamenting the fact that you will always remain nameless in my poetry.

You are the prettiest shade of grey, the most breathtaking stormy sky. And where once I was bruised skin and weakened bones, I am now beating hearts and tattooed courage. Because of you.

And I know this letter will forever be in my bottom desk drawer, never in an addressed envelope stamped and on its way to you. But I hope my well wishes find their way into your life in the form of a genuine smile and an extra promising dawn. I hope joy slips through the cracks in your heart and settles there, finds a way to stay.

My muse, my love, my loss. Thank you for giving me something to hold - conversations and laughter and affection and hopes.

I still see you in my dreams - the details of your face blurred but the feeling in my stomach the same. I still wake up running my fingers over the outline of your memory, still revisit halcyon conversations in my mind in the space between getting out of bed and eating breakfast. The space between lunch and dinner, dusk and dawn. The space between everything.

I see the colour tangerine and I look twice in case it’s you. I inhale sandalwood and am still riddled with the inescapable feeling of missing you hopelessly.

I read a diary on the backs of my eyelids and wish to crawl into the past, one where you are still near. I hear them talk of romance and listen to my heart crack in time to the syllables of your name.

I read about happiness and pray that’s where you are, read about love and hope you are enveloped in it, even if I am shackled by a dull heartache that looks an awful lot like your absence.

I want to thank you for giving me reason to love. For handing me a smile that didn’t hurt. For touching my heart with such gentle hands. For never changing - never drawing blood.

I want to beg of you: please hold the memory of me close and tight and carefully (like I do for you).

I want to beg of you: please don’t forget me.