Your hands burn like hearth fires, like the candlelight that flickers across my writing desk, thawing the ice that had built over the years. I had thought it a fever, the burning. Cold without warmth and suddenly I was sick with it. Encompassing, relieving. I still feel the shapes your fingers drew. Mindless, careless, most precious tracings.
Parallel worlds intersecting for this brief moment in time. Our moment. Worth more than all the jewels and all the riches. The waves lapped at the shore, forever chasing its ephemeral touch.
Do you still remember that day? I can still feel your arms around my waist, our laughter echoing off the rocks, the sunburned sand sinking into our soaked skin. I wanted to wrap that warmth around the both of us. Like a shield. Like a cage? I suppose even the clearest memories are made nebulous with time.
Your eyes, bright shining pieces of your soul, how I adored the way they looked at me. You hated them. Reminded you of mud, you’d said. But, my darling, don’t you remember how the sun adores you? Reflecting the emerald and amber and moonstone in your eyes. Every facet brighter than a prism and brighter still in their wrath. How beautiful they were.
Artist’s fingers. The paths they traced could start wars, raze forests. I wanted to be consumed by them. Molded by them. Forever the muse until I lost my self in you. What did you see in my eyes on that summer’s day? What did you feel when you reached through my rib cage? Did you see yourself held there? Is that why you ran? Never trapped, never caged, you broke away and flew to where I would never find you again. Perhaps that is for the best.
I still remember your eyes from that looping, recursive day. How they sparkled in the sun’s dying embers … perhaps we should’ve known then how it would all end. Do you still remember the way our hands entwined? How, for a moment, it was only us and our dreams against the world? Yeah, I don’t remember either.
