memory burn

I close my eyes, and it comes back: the memory of a kiss. The very first, a sweet and gentle soul, there in the hall at school; the butterflies, the anticipation, the floating after. Standing at my front door with the one that had my heart for so many years, the path that was started with that innocent and tender moment. Sitting on a cliff, watching a Pacific sunset with the one that I could still be with today, if we'd only met at slightly different times in our lives. That portentous kiss on the grassy hill during a stolen lunchtime moment. The inevitable one that day at home, filled with love and pain and longing and fear and rightness and connection. The one that caught me by surprise, nice but too soon, not ready for that dance yet. The one that hasn't happened yet. The one that won't happen. The one that should happen.

I close my eyes, and I'm there, in each moment. Feeling, tasting, seeing, celebrating, thanking, giving, taking, relaxing, tensing, overthinking, not thinking at all. Images, scenes, there in the archives, able to be reviewed any time I want. Access and enjoy, relive, relearn, relove. Afterimages of times past, burned into the wall of memory, like paintings on a cave wall.

Close your eyes and you are there.