i panicked when you were nowhere in sight
not before me, nor behind me.
i searched for you in my room,
but you were not in my boxes,
nor in my keepsakes.
i opened well-loved pages of poetry,
and all i found were decomposing petals
of long-lost reminiscence.
i searched and rummaged,
and all i found of you were
bits and traces of a presence
not yet even pieced together.

who you are for me
cannot be contained
by a box, a page of verses,
a tumbler, or a photograph,
but those were all i have of you.

how can someone of such gravity
be for me so limited in presence?

for a moment,
i had to fight the urge to believe
i only made you up.
the voice that lulled me to sleep
one starry night –
could it possibly be a dream?
were those big hands
that never failed to grasp mine
mere imagination?
those eyes, that smile,
are they but a compound
of so many other eyes and smiles?

oh how easily i forget,
you exist apart from my memories!
your voice, your hands
are not dependent on my ability to feel nor hear.
my verses cannot summon you,
nor can their absence limit who you are.
i do not need to remember you
for you to be there.
neither should my heart beat
for you to be loved.

you are your own,
capable of storing your own keepsakes
and pressed petals.
should you choose to,
those big hands can take hold
of any other hand.
you can choose to gift anyone
with the beauty of your smile
or of your song.
and i need not be the object
of your affection
for your own heart to beat wildly
against your chest.

you are
even if we’re not.
i am
apart from you.
you will always be you
even if i was not in the equation,
and I will always be me
even if you are not the object
of my metaphors.

for j.e.
*090514