i theorize us
in the context of who i thought
we may have been
and i sit inside that thought
for far too long
stretching it wider and wider
until memory becomes something almost livable
something i can walk through again
with enough imagination
the sound vibrates softly
chairs turning beneath dim lights
the room spinning in slow motion
and somehow
these moments seem to belong only to me now
as if memory chose one body
to survive inside of
the strands of your hair
how they slipped beneath my fingers
the softness of them
the slight adjustments in your tone
when emotion almost surfaced
books shifting from shelves
voices hidden behind your eyes
saying more in silence
than words from your mouth ever could
and this all feels
slightly more than memory
if that makes sense to you
and maybe i romanticize too hard
maybe i hold onto beauty
longer than i should
but what is a life worth living
if we cannot imagine goodness in other people
if we cannot soften the sharp edges
of what once hurt us
so i take you in this form
carefully
like an object too fragile to drop
i place you on a shelf in my mind
next to all the things i could not throw away
the warmth
the softness
the late night conversations
the lies we tell ourselves
just to make the darkness easier to sleep beside
fog settles over my driveway
thick enough to blur the distance
yet it never enters the home
sometimes i think
you feel like this too
close enough to sadness to see it clearly
but still refusing to let it consume you completely
i hold your leg in a moment
not this one
but one i revisit often
a memory replayed so many times
it feels almost current again
and the moment is so kind
so unbearably gentle
that i return to it sometimes
just to feel warmth
without needing to ask for it
i think time has a strange way
of keeping people suspended
inside what they remember
how we frolic through old versions of ourselves
echoing endlessly
inside tragedy
inside longing
inside sadness
but i refuse to let sorrow
be the only language memory speaks in
because bittersweetness
has always felt kinder to me
the memories soften in my mind
their sharp corners rounding with age
and time expands strangely
everywhere at once
we are here
and there
and somehow still existing
inside moments already gone
i exist inside the past
while standing in this current second
reading you
reading myself
stretching further inward
through the reach of my own mind
because time does not disappear
it layers
and somewhere beneath all of this
we still exist
exactly as we were
so if i romanticize the idea of us
if i polish old memories until they glow
i leave them with happiness instead of grief
because what is a life worth living
if you cannot remember the good
in the people you once called home
if every chapter must end
let mine at least close softly
with warmth still left between the pages