Fleeting Fragments

It is only a fragment of thought

A splinter, a glimmering shard

Of a maybe-memory from a maybe-life

Perhaps forgotten and shut away so here remains bearable

It is of afternoon sun and swaying, budding branches

Lemon and salt, strong on my tastebuds

The sound of fiddles and the murmur of an upbeat crowd

Coarse grass under my pressed palms

And the face of her, unnamed and joyous

Hair the color of obsidian

Eyes of swirling starlight

Hairline scar serpentined across her left cheek

An underscore

Always anonymous

Always blazing into my core

Always beaming with her certainty

It takes my breath away

An energy I can’t place rushes upwards and consumes

She is real

She is fire

She is someone

…somewhere else

Always somewhere else

Never to intersect with this emaciated world in which I reside

I see her in dreams and drunkenness

A compass of daydreams

Hidden in highway lines

In looping hold music

In churning shadows on my bedroom ceiling

The moments that linger between breaths belong to her

Although I have never seen her

Although I have never heard her voice

Although I have never felt her touch

I know her love

And it is in this warmth I live to search

Desperate to spot her in shuffling crowds

Languishing checkout lines

Melancholic commutes

Solemn church pews

Overfiltered social posts

Like some unobtainable being

Peer of Calypso and Nyx

She is the owner of my someday

The sole key of my rest

Yet she is nowhere but within her own cosmos

Until she isn’t

And upon a street corner, scanning crowds for her, I hear a heavy collision of metal and flesh

The screaming of a child witness

The screeching of a rusted taxi

I see her feet first

She is exactly as I’ve seen her so many times

But instead of an underscore scar

Splashes of scarlett spread over her

Instead of a sunny, windy afternoon

Grave-shaded concrete is her background

Instead of fiddles

Screams and sirens

You, I say

You, she says

Her eyes, wide with a familiar, scalding stare

And there, I see it, right there in an instant

Her coincided searching, seeking, longing

She spotted me first, across the raging boulevard

As my scanning eyes glazed over my saughtafter spark

Maybe where I failed my search, she succeeded

Maybe if I had noticed her, I could’ve take the hit

Maybe her life of vibrancy could’ve continued

My universe of maybes is born

The fiery love I’ve felt for a vision exploded

If only for a moment of flashing brightness

Not fate, but cruel serendipity

Our quivering eyes lock

My breath becomes weak and rapid

As she breathes her last