Blink

Careful now or you might miss it...

Don't blink.


Have you ever wondered why those moments pass so fast that you don't even realize how important they were until much later? Days have passed, perhaps years even, but you can still recall with a brilliance when they occurred. Vivid, you can still pull the memories back of...

- that time you drove for hours listening to her favorite CD and you surprised her by knowing all of the lyrics

- that time you had her pressed against the kitchen counter after the afternoon rainstorm had caught you both

- that time you pulled out the sofa bed for no reason and spend the day lounging on it watching old movies and eating candy

- that time you took photos of each other playing in the snow at the park with an old disposable camera

- that time at the bar when a song came on she loved so much that you and her danced in front of all the bewildered patrons


(but things are fading)

You are beginning to forget how she tasted in the morning when she rolled over and the sun reflected off her hair. You are beginning to forget how her laughter sounded when she was half-asleep from waiting on you to get home. You are beginning to forget how she looked climbing out of the shower with a sly smile to ask you for a towel. You are beginning to forget names and dates and events you once held so dear...

Do you fear it? Do you fear that you are merely combining various experiences from your past to create a myth, to fictionalize a lifetime? Have the things I've written here truly happened, or are they merely composites; pieces from myriad moments stitched together to form something beautiful yet insubstantial?

So I draw my fingertips upon your face,
a delicate map, a delicate mission.
(to see you safe, to see you well)
Kiss my queen as I whisper the words,
"I pledge myself in your honor."
You grace me with a smile, and
ask me what it is I might desire.
And I declare, "To build a church of you.”


Is it still there, that majesty? The strength and purity you once possessed that was used to formulate those words? Such powerful imagery, but is it hollow? What truth can remain in these words now that time has passed, now that the fading has begun?

I believe it will take a wiser man than I to answer...

(Just don't blink.)

Sensations. Bombarded with images and whispers.
Memories not quite made of the strongest materials.
Fictionalized re-accounts. Dreams of the mundane in the most fantastical means.
I could slip anywhere (anywhen) and be there beside you.

Vicious, malicious and pure
Those are the words
Your taste, your laugh, your fists...
they are fading
And I'm enraged by my own betrayal. I can't conceive of losing these things, letting time swallow them whole. All I have left of you is the past; the past passing me by.

”I do believe I have either sex or murder on my mind.”

Haunted.
Not by this home which we shared
- so much so much so much -

A lifetime of love and regret condensed into a few years worth of glorious heartache. Did you know that you would come to make me believe in destiny? I had no choice, really. A path so altered from your presence, I see no other alternative.

But fate fucked up.

Now you're elsewhere, dancing the night away in another's arms. And I'm fine with that in many ways...
... but still haunted by the fact that all of it is dwindling.


And we’re
like
twilight. Escaping rays of sunshine. Bleed out to the deeper
black
Rays of sunshine that might make me blink

At night, the shadows can play tricks on you.
And all colors can seem the same,
always lingering.

You are the color of... *fill in the blank*
I am the color of... *fill in the blank*
-Answers to be provided at a point many years ago.-
This deeper black is everything else, but you knew that. It is not a symbol of negativity, simply the total combination X the absence of all. But you knew that...

I'll tell you a secret like I used to tell you secrets; soon you'll be forgotten.

"And we fought as hard as we loved..."
Such pretty, ultimately fragile & fallible words.


I'm
Still
Trying to remember something, anything.
I close my eyes and it creeps in. It swirls and undulates, an equation of my thought patterns in visceral format.
Paint me a picture, monochromatic - no.
Use our colors. I see you stepping out of the shower, wet rivulets running down you. Beautiful, you...


A lie.
I have concocted this memory. It is not valid. It is a combination of events, played out thousands of times. I have no clear images left. The past has passed me by.

Your taste, your laugh, your fists... are gone. I blinked

All I'm left with is an empty box of discolored photographs that have spilled onto the floor. No pattern, no special arrangement, no mighty plan. The tip of my tongue, the slightest of hints. You are now just a clue written in the sand with a tide coming in, flooding this desert.

I have no colors left in my palette any longer.
"Sex and murder both sounded so justified!" I scream to myself as I throw the paintbrush across the room. And there is no need to remain still; Fade out (perhaps return another day)


And let this fable rest finally. But a caution for the reader...

Don’t blink.



(from the chapbook, “...And If Eternity Failed You”)
© BRIAN FATAH STEELE, 2010