the slow art of breathing bitter

And Just Like That

How perfect you looked in your faded blue shirt—

The time we were playing checkers,

Near the fireplace—stuck in the rain.

You didn't, this time, smell like vanilla or rose

But of hope, oh, disastrous hope—

That we could, after all, get back again.

And the fire went out; the air was cold—

The rain poured harder, smoldering gold.

And I felt like we were in our sparkling twenties again.

But there we were, just like that:

Your damp Levi's shirt and my sweating hands;

Our muted gazes at the gray walls.

A sudden flash of light, the crack of the glass:

We were shocked and stained with blood—

And a second later, we were close.

Maybe, we shouldn't have been together,

Maybe the adrenaline shouldn't have been rushing wilder—

But deep down, the light faraway still flickers.

And there we were, holding each other:

We were so close, yet the words were far

away; That ache in our hearts shuttered them like the glass.

And maybe, your disastrous hopes flickered out

When the next moment, I found you moving out,

Before slipping a slip of paper into my fingers.

The smell of roses and petrichor:

Just like our lazy green afternoons—

The hearts flew away: We were never together.

And it ached so hard—

Like a petal plucked from a flower,

Like your back was crushed in thousand needles.

I couldn't feel my hands shaking,

Or my blue lips trembling—

Only the decay of the dark bruises on my knuckles.

It wasn't heartbreak;

I couldn't feel m heart racing faster.

But a strong pang of pain—a heartache

In the streak of moon gaze.

And just like that, you were gone

Like a whiff of rosewood cologne.

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A/N: A memoir for my Grandad. But it just got written from scratch. It pains a lot when you realize you can't see your favorite person again, but these hard, unbearable things make you stronger. Enough hard times, let's sing for Christmas to come quickly and color our lives in golden and pink. So why not click the little star and make it feel merry as well?