I Still Remember You

You presume I’ve finally banished you from my thoughts.
How wrong of you to think so.
How wrong of you to suppose I am grateful no more.
You must have forgotten the reasons for my staying afar.

Everything that I am made of: my sentiments, my sensitivity, my silliness, my sensibilities – the very things that are of no purpose to anyone – might have embellished the distance. So others might not find me queer:
So others might cease wondering how I could hold you dear.

Do you remember a pledge I made not long ago?
The pledge which unfolded blushingly across the hues in our sky? It was a pledge of allegiance that followed your aid in releasing me to a world…a world I could have only once dreamed of belonging. But ours was an affinity that got drowned for good. By a pride between us that mercilessly stood.

Some matters can’t be expounded as to why I feel indebted to you still. In tender remembrance, I’ve preserved a place for you within me – where I can regard the way we used to be.

I’ve lived long enough,
long enough to render me able in braving the aches of loving and losing.
But as I had pressed my lips onto the heart of your words,
There remained traces of finer lessons from this heaven on earth.

——

-marj, august 2014