Some mornings, I awakened to his smile, brighter than the
sun, more welcome than ever as the sun eludes into increasingly somber morning.
If it wasn’t for him, or the crimson conflagration that wages its war upon the
summer fleeting, I might soon forget the colors that are fading into a sepia
memory. Like the astounding jungle fire falling from the sky, cracking
underneath, the flame emphatically subdued, there was nothing like his warmth.
When he was gone, it escaped me like a dream.
More than sensation beguiling the nerves to spark along the
epidermis, more than a measurement on a thermometer, a fire you can’t
extinguish with water.
I’ll find myself shivering under a downy cloud. The dull
light of autumn morning isn’t convincing enough for me to open my eyes and
greet the day. But he could shift the clouds; remove the unconscious fog with
an effusive smile. I’d rise with the sun, my fired eyes would flare and sparkle
playfully.
This is what it means to be blinded by love. A spectacular sight;
some kind of wonderful. It’s when you realize that your heart rules all the
domains of the body. To see the face of your beloved, to know your eyes are
tethered to your beating, ebullient heart. It is to feel the weight in your
heart that prevents the butterflies in your stomach from shooting out into the
stratosphere.
Sometimes I fear of making choices with closed eyes, then
waking up and all would disappear. If I allowed something, someone else to
invade my thoughts, his absence would be eclipsed by trifling minutiae. It’d be
as if he never shared the width of his body, never rested his head in the crook
between my head and shoulders after making love beneath our autumn leaves. Without
a constant vigilance, what would he be but a lingering dream? A phantom I
conjured to be a companion in the lonely corridors of my shifting thoughts. For
when the warmth escaped what was once living, what mementos could we keep but
the memories?
