I remember the time. The time I met you.
It was subtle and passing but unmoving and rigid all at once, as if I could lay a finger on you and press into the truth, or miss you if I so much as blinked.
Nights of wide, welling eyes. Not really seeing. Hammering beats in an expanding chest.
There are marks inside. Marks that have mostly faded, but take only an instant to sting again.
That’s what happens when they break it, the love you flourish and nurture. Every corner, every nook, and edge of yourself seems to shatter at your feet and you need to piece it all back together.
I couldn’t find all my pieces. And I only noticed when that hammering heart thudded into earshot. In moments ordinarily void of heartache, I was different. It made sense to no one, not even to me.
When logic broke through, I found myself tearing through old furniture for those lost pieces. Searching for them, but also searching for you. Maybe I thought finding one would mean finding the other. But spinning the chairs and dislodging the tables did damage too.
I felt trapped by a revolving, inescapable circuit I knew all too well.
Just when I began to accept we’d never fully know each other, there came the time. The time those dark stains drained of colour, fading into the opaque layer of my skin as it met yours.
For a moment the marks were gone. Or maybe I just didn’t feel them, or see them. I only saw you. It was as if by laying a hand on the sharp plane of your cheekbone, the confusion and hurt evaporated into an abyss I could finally ignore.
I remember the time. It was when I met you. My definition of happy.
And they were right. They’d said I’d find you. They said it would be worth it in the end, and that there would be others who could help me find the lost pieces.
Though, I didn’t predict the clarity to arrive in a moment so simple.
I watched your face as it watched mine.
It was beginning to make sense. All of it. This was where I needed to be. This was where I would always meet you.
HG.