That Which Was Lost

– I stumble out; the sun still setting off the sky. The blues turned a hazy reddish purple. I’ve only had a couple of drinks. I’ve always been capable of holding more than just a couple. But I can’t. Not this day. I can taste nothing but the alcohol as it evaporates in my mouth, and I swallow dry. I can’t. I refuse to. The pulsing in my heart quickens and my heart strains. I shiver. As I stumble out, the dying light of day shocks my senses. I feel weakened. In the moment’s darkness, everything is lost. Everything except for three moments which return to me in short bursts. My face gives to the pangs. It is drawn tightly, like the strings on a paper heart. In that moment, you tear into me. You take my breath from me, and you are not there, have not been there for what seems like lifetimes. I collapse over myself, succumbed to gravity and the emptiness within, the emptiness of that cavity which could not fathom another drink. My vision blurred, all I see is the soft light of street lamps and their shadows hiding away from the fading day, and dragging themselves over to the path way between the bar and tattoo shop. I follow, without much animus. I follow. My steps uncoordinated, as the world around me becomes nothing more than a blur of shapes and colors. I stand there, close my eyes and fill the space of my lungs, but those memories tear through me in their bursts. They are set off inside me, like the explosions of independence, with the opposite effect. I feel the ocean inside me, as it breaks out. The moisture clarifies vision. And I stand there, as the sun admits the day’s defeat and shadows stop hiding. There is a dark blue which fills the night, the light falls from street lamps and breaks apart on the cooled pavement. I stand there. The bursts become stronger. I’ve been here before, once, with you. How I kissed you then, held you close, pressed into you. I feel your breath. And for that breath I am not alone, but still back there, trying to recover what I had already lost, then, when I pressed into you and tried to find that space where we were one. Your tears had showered us that night; the ocean inside wails with the memory. We were young, younger than now, and we’d been hurt and hurt each other. But in being young, sometimes, this draws us closer, but only keeps us there if we can endure each new wound as a form of healing. And the other sparks of memory only magnify this one. As the shadows sweep across the dying light and it’s the light that scatters.