The Art of Moving On

Sometimes I can feel you breathing here, sharing the same space as time overlaps our distance.

I can feel the whiskers on your chin, brushing into my hair and grazing my face. Your smile catches my lips and soon we are both wearing that grin. There was always the way your large, safe hands housed my own that made me feel small and delicate, and the circle our entwined arms made, a constant revolution around a thousand suns.

I was always a shy, foolish girl, hoping for that forever feeling in the eyes of strangers. And I was never good at speaking all the words caught in my head that came to my tongue and refused to move. But you made it easy, like I had no choice and somehow my mouth became a river where those stalling words surged to your ears. I remember being happy, and that’s not a feeling I’m used to.

But that was a while ago, and I’ve slipped into my shell again and fear the touch of my own shadow. I smile at strangers, I eat better and I’m even getting used to walking the streets alone. But can a person ever really forget what burned so hotly in her soul?

At night, I admit, I slip and let my carefully constructed wall down, where I hear your voice reverberate around me and see the color of your eyes, all warm and rich and starlight. And I wonder if you ever take a moment to search for me in the secret spaces, the cosmic cracks that still allow us to circle but never touch. I wonder if you even want to. Maybe I’ll be the bait for both of us and fall for the memories that keep my past alive, and when your scent lifts into the confined room in my heart that still waits for you, I’ll breathe it in and fill my lungs with the part of us pieced together by poetry and November nights, holding onto your essence as tightly as these small and stumbling fingers can manage. And then I’ll let you fade back into the empty air, when every drop of my longing has mastered the art of moving on.