It’s almost the end of 2018, and I still think about you. I Still think about your hands, my hips, and your warmth.

I still fantasise about us together; and you have no idea how hard the reality of today with respect to that, confuses me. Because I fantasise about the idea of you, more than you as a person; the idea of someone who would be perfect for me.

I’m finally able to say it. Our relationship –as two human beings existing, but for a moment– granted me so much happiness, and allowed me so much contentment. It didn’t shake me to the thought that I was in love with the man that you could be, and not the boy that you were. It helped ease my mind into not questioning it. I should have; in retrospect, I should have– because, given some foresight, I would have recognised how I was channeling my need for a perfect future, a stable future, with someone I cared about– onto your broad, yet fragile shoulders.

Maybe if I did question it, your eventual departure, and sudden withdrawal would have bothered me much less, and maybe then, I’d have sooner understood that what I felt for you was but a fleeting emotion that I attest to the spirits of all those who I felt romantic love toward; all of my valentines in blue, who have vanished without a trace, all the ones that till this  moment of clarity, remained elusive enigmas in the woods of my mind.

Maybe if I questioned it more, or gave it more thought, it wouldn’t be that every space I look to, in the name of love, I would have to see your face, or hear your voice, or smell your scent. Maybe then I’d allow myself relief, and solace, in the knowledge that our love was short-lived, but not fake. But since I did not, I sit here writing, in the atmosphere of yet another song that reminds me of you, and rainfall that takes me back to us; but this time, in reminiscence rather than fantasy.

And now that I have written, in prose loosely suggesting your impact on my being, I feel full again; as though I have washed in incense and elderflower, your scent from my body, and your mark from my spirit.

The first rains are supposed to be cleansing–
you poured down onto my body, like a monsoon cloud burdened with rain,
but whilst you shared your bounty,
you flooded yourself out.

I can tell when we began,
and now I say that we have ended.
How glorious that is.

Thank you.