What Could Have Been

The things that may have been stay unknown but familiar. Like the face of the sibling of your friend whom you’ve never met.

These things reside in the back of my mind. Unreachable because they never came forth. Never sought to be more than wishes and things hoped for. Dreams soaked in possibility, yet left to dry in the heat of my omissions.

You were the poetry I wrote about. Transcending my dreams and becoming what should never have been, but was; completely, utterly, right there.
I reached out to you via eleven digits and a chime, and each one of my senses experienced your magnificence individually. The sound of your voice resonated through ears and into my soul.
Your laughter rung like bells from one end of my mind to the other. Taking the covers off memories I thought were extinct. By instinct I reached for more.
And then came sight. The sight of you in ankle cut jeans and pinstriped loafers. Your smile left me blinded like I’d been looking through the leftover shine of a sharp sunrise.

Words and laughter accompanied us to a place where we found pleasure in each other’s company. Playing with phones and speaking in hushed tones. At ease with each other, you eased into me. Leaning into me as if to seek for comfort and finding it as your head nestled below my collarbone, your tangled hair tickling my nose. Me breathing it all in; the smell of your hair like crushed raspberries and bubble gum. The nape of your neck like earth, exotic soap and that extra smell that beauty adds. It intoxicated me.

Unable to help myself, I helped myself to the feel of you. Touring down the paths of your skin with my fingers. Meandering along your arms and tracing the perfect fault lines on your palms. Brushing a finger behind your ear and entangling your already nappy hair.

And that was what we were. A singular wonder rediscovered in so many different ways every single time we connected. Every time our lips collided we spoke secrets that could only be expressed through taste. Every time you smiled the winds filled my sails; letting me float free and fast atop the seas of joy.

You were the sunlight and I was the hilltop. You crested on top of me and for a moment, we were beautiful. Looked at with longing by passers by who understood beauty and smiled at the simplicity of it.
But as with all things the sun gazes on, our beauty was fleeting. Reality stepped in like the darkness after a bright day. And despite the way that everything could have been, it’s all changed.

Now I sit and wonder to myself where it all went. Time and emotions spent to pay for what would never last. The past is all that’s there to remember. What was once a roaring flame, started by a single matchstick, now is turned to cold ashes scattered to the winds of reminiscences.

-Panda-