Elements of Him

i'll never forget

the    c    r     e      of his lips,
              u    v    s
prominent on his face
    like mountains
risen from the earth.

or
the    w    v     s      of his hair,
               a     e
cascading over his head
    like waterfalls
powerless to gravity.

or
the    r    m     l      of his voice,
              u     b    e
carried through the air
    like gusts of wind
moaning as it blows.

or
the    t   r    l        of his touch,
             h   i    l
heating up my body
    like wildfires
scorching the earth.

i'll never forget.

(b.m.)

Fleeting

I wish I could freeze a moment in time. Bottle up its essence. Revisit it at times when I feel life is too much to handle. When life seems like a never ending storm cloud. That moment, bottled up, would be like the sunshine peaking through. A reminder that even on the darkest of days, there is still light hidden underneath, waiting patiently to illuminate the sky.

But life is not all sunshine and rainbows.

These moments are so fleeting. So temporary. Once they're gone, we can't get them back. We can take pictures or videos, sure. They will live on as memories that we can look back on. But we will never be able to truly relive that utter happiness we had in our hearts that day, or the gut-wrenching laughter that poured out of us so effortlessly and uncontrollably as if nothing else in the world mattered. People change. Life moves on. That's the way it is. And once we're at the end of the road, greeting death as a forgotten friend we've been meaning to catch up with, we'll reflect on those moments we held onto so dearly. How precious they were. How fleeting the were.

How fucking fleeting they are.

-b.m.

Ghosted

you had become a ghost,

a distant memory, slightly faded,

the words written in my journal.

i remember the night i told you goodbye.

when i yelled and screamed,

and promised that was the end of it. 

the nights that followed were cold.

too empty in the darkness, too alone,

the silence echoed. the tears whispered.

i learned to hear your name without crying. 

learned to smile at other men again.

 no longer searching for your face in theirs.

then i ran into you on the street one day and 

everything came pouring back. i hid it quite well 

behind the smile i had practiced. 

your smile. that smile that shook the ground

i stood on. the smile that i fell in love with. 

the one i tried so hard to forget.

i'd never felt love like what i had with you.

 it was indescribable. my heart ached from 

how hard it beat for you every day. 

i was a forest and you were a god damn match. 

carved from the same tree but you burned like hell 

and i was flammable.

you were ignited by our love. i was struck by 

the beauty and danger and raw power of your flame. 

until one day it burned out. 

and all that was left were ashes. dust left over from a 

wildfire. beneath, the embers still glowed with 

an unwavering passion.

i almost lost it. i almost broke like that god awful day. 

all of the pieces i glued back together, 

threatening to fall apart. 

but i didn't. we talked. mindless chit chat about

 how we've been. formalities. and then we parted. 

yet another goodbye.

i was left standing there in the street. processing. 

was he as broken as i was before? 

was he glued together like me?

i like to think so. that's the thing about love. 

it's excruciating. when you have it and after it's gone.

 a blessing and a curse. 

but it stays with us until we die. 

a score made on our hearts like tattoos of the past. 

they fade but never truly go away. 

we might have gone our separate ways, 

but we'll always have that. the love we shared. 

the kind they write books after. 

so once again you're a ghost,

a distant memory, slightly faded,

the words written in this poem.

always there, forever. 

-b.m.