Fifteen Years Later

And it returns, unexpected to my heart, like it never left. A shiver foretold its arrival, an escaped kiss between my skin and his lips. A tale told a lifetime ago, when I was younger and just a little more foolish, when every love was my last. A story no one expected would end this way. A reality I never even dreamt of. There's fear in me, I have been unlucky in love, I have been childish and gullible, and I can't help but be guarded, cautious, rational. But that is not me. It has never been me. I am foolish and impulsive. Love and passion are like air and water, half-measures are just escape routes, lukewarm is for cowards, and I am brave to the point of stupidity, I give it all or nothing.


In a crowded street he found his way back to my life, there was no escaping what came to pass, how, suddenly-remembered forgotten-kisses have awaken a buried desire. In a rush the crowded, darkened corners of my heart were free for him, and there was no delay in his intentions. His love has found a new home, my love an anchor, the fires tamed, the storms have resided, the north upon my brow. The invisible ties on our fingers, the secret that belongs to us alone will be our shield against the force of  the ocean rising between us. We are wary of the plans made when our bed becomes our kingdom. Challenges, we meet with reckless abandonment, there is no doubt in our movements. Alive, we breathe.

Whatever silent doubts I have kept inside one by one is dispelled. I didn't want this, I hid behind see-through excuses, columns made of ice, escaping love. I didn't want to love, I didn't want to be loved. I had finally learned to be alone. I was certain that solitude would be my only company for a long time still. But god found my plans a joke, and her whispered laughter in my ears at night was all I needed to let go. That was my cue, that was the shiver running through me. There is more strength and less effort in unlocking the chains. There is still fear in me, fear that what is ahead will break us, hurt us; twinned in our tempers, the future daunt us. As the inevitable goodbye approaches we grow closer, more certain, fighting logic, fighting physics, erasing the distance, erasing the time apart, all with a quiet promise carved in wood...