there’s a prudence in the way he looks at the sun,
a calculated tilt of the head, an aversion of his gaze in a way that feels
more challenge than retreat. it is only
under the rain that they see the bridge of his smile drop
into a canyon of deeper joy that echoes with his laughter
and the sound of rain roaring around them. it mirrors the blood
roaring through their veins as they run through a field and spin,
eyes focused on him as their solid point to keep their balance as the ground
becomes a suggestion under their feet and they come the closest
they’ve ever been to flight. they spin as the hands on the clock spool out
and the roar diminishes to static and
it’s a funny thing that’s happening as they spin,
instead of smoothing between their thoughts into sugar & dissolving
instantly, the memory crystallizes like salt. months later, they’ll suck on it
until their mouth is dry but they’ll love it because the sugar wore
a hole in their mouth that their tongue lands on just to make sure it’s really not there.
in that field they reach for his hand as he spins just a bit too far away,
and in the space between them they can see that
what they’re doing is a funny thing, like playing chicken with themself or
some inevitability as a nemesis. like gravity. like driving their car off
a cliff. like time,
which is a sort of warm rain that washes all sharp things away. where
they can close their eyes and all of the pain dissolves,
but so does the inhalation at talking to him,
the feel of the bones in his hand as he gripped theirs
for a handshake the week before he left. more than anything,
i’m sorry.
that feels like the wrong word but i don’t know what else to say that means
i know, i regret, i wish i’d clung tighter to memory. there is a part of me
that always knew i could never savor anything. that knew i could never
write an ode before an elegy. that knew i never
love anyone as much as right after they leave. that knows every
love poem i write slips into a regret poem when my back is turned.
that knows you are right now opening under the rain,
reaching your fingers to the sky in prayer to the gods
of your new city. i am still
in that field with my eyes closed, trying to focus
on something too far back for light. i am spinning
in the only way that makes sense i am slipping
away like the petrichor on your driveway.
September Lin (they/them) is a young writer with a complicated relationship with summer, who keeps accidentally writing love poems. They are enthusiastic about words & all the things they can do and all the places this takes them.
Painting by. Gustav Klimt
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