You used to say you loved me. Your mouth close to my ear and the words all kissing and soft. And I believed you then, and I walked taller and was always smiling. And we fitted together when we walked and our arms folded about each other and not ever letting go. Do you remember? And you said you loved me and you would forever.
I see the young in the street. I watch them passing by the window and I look for me in the boy and you in the girl. I note how they walk in step and they walk slow, as though with no purpose. And they laugh sometimes, or look serious, and they stop to kiss under the streetlights, even in the day. And something in me breaks. And I wish I was that boy and I wish you were that girl.
In the park, too, and I sit on a bench there, by myself and I miss you there beside me, feel only the space between us. And I watch the boys throwing cartwheels across the grass and the girls pretending not to notice. And the cartwheels break and a boy crumples to the ground and one girl runs to his side and takes his hand in hers and she leans in close enough she can tell him she loves him and not be heard by anyone else. It was like that once for us.
Then there must have been a day when you didn’t. A day when you stopped saying it. I don’t recall the day, not exactly. Don’t even know when it was that I noticed the breathless silence that was there. But there must have been a day, for you stopped saying it and I stopped believeing, and I do not recall the last time that you did say it. And I wonder if it is always the way.
Under my breath, I say it now. I say ‘I love you’. Of course, it is too late to make a difference and when I say it my voice is laced with regret that I had not said it sooner and said it more. ‘I love you’. And I wonder if it might have made a difference, if it might have kept you here beside me a little longer.
I take a piece of cloth from my pocket, a yellow duster edged with red thread stitched like it is the work of a child at school, and I rub at the brass plaque on the back of the bench. It bears your name and it says ‘in memory’. And I do remember, some things I do; but every day there is something else I forget: the shape of your lips in a kiss, the colour in your lost hair, the touch of your hand in mine. I forget these things, except in some general remembered way. But the sound of your whispering in my ear and saying again and again that you love me, that I don’t forget and can’t.
January 15, 2012: You used to say…
You used to say you loved me. Your mouth close to my ear and the words all kissing and soft. And I believed you then, and I walked taller and was always smiling. And we fitted together when we walked and our arms folded about each other and not ever letting go. Do you remember? And you said you loved me and you would forever.
I see the young in the street. I watch them passing by the window and I look for me in the boy and you in the girl. I note how they walk in step and they walk slow, as though with no purpose. And they laugh sometimes, or look serious, and they stop to kiss under the streetlights, even in the day. And something in me breaks. And I wish I was that boy and I wish you were that girl.
In the park, too, and I sit on a bench there, by myself and I miss you there beside me, feel only the space between us. And I watch the boys throwing cartwheels across the grass and the girls pretending not to notice. And the cartwheels break and a boy crumples to the ground and one girl runs to his side and takes his hand in hers and she leans in close enough she can tell him she loves him and not be heard by anyone else. It was like that once for us.
Then there must have been a day when you didn’t. A day when you stopped saying it. I don’t recall the day, not exactly. Don’t even know when it was that I noticed the breathless silence that was there. But there must have been a day, for you stopped saying it and I stopped believeing, and I do not recall the last time that you did say it. And I wonder if it is always the way.
Under my breath, I say it now. I say ‘I love you’. Of course, it is too late to make a difference and when I say it my voice is laced with regret that I had not said it sooner and said it more. ‘I love you’. And I wonder if it might have made a difference, if it might have kept you here beside me a little longer.
I take a piece of cloth from my pocket, a yellow duster edged with red thread stitched like it is the work of a child at school, and I rub at the brass plaque on the back of the bench. It bears your name and it says ‘in memory’. And I do remember, some things I do; but every day there is something else I forget: the shape of your lips in a kiss, the colour in your lost hair, the touch of your hand in mine. I forget these things, except in some general remembered way. But the sound of your whispering in my ear and saying again and again that you love me, that I don’t forget and can’t.