August, A Lifetime Ago

It was before that embrace, I remember. Before that landmark of my childhood where every photograph of us featured me smiling at you, whether you knew or you didn't. A love loved in clandestine, at first. Its fragile not of an eggshell but that of a grenade. It was the month my phone first chimed with your message. Your name on the screen - a glowing gift wrapped in a crumpled sheet of paper. I was on my way to school, I remember. The sky was as blue as my soul. If loneliness had a face, it would be my reflection at the mirror. A portrait of a sad girl you could hang on the Louvre on the first of November, more haunting than any Halloween decoration. It was the season I learned about you past the pastel-colored walls and the carpeted floors that housed us once a week. If bliss had a place, it wouldn't be the playground but the platform to which your shadow was cast upon. If safety took a shape, it would be your arms. I wasn't writing then as much as I write now, but I knew that if I did, it would be poems after your face shaped like a heart. It was the end of something harrowing for me and the beginning of something more harrowing than that. Something I never told you, but maybe I should have. Maybe I will. Or won't. It rained a lot during those days I thought Noah's Ark would flash on the news, I remember. It was when I asked for your favorite color and found out that it wasn't mine. It was the introduction of the era of isolation and for once, I was grateful to be bubble-wrapped. It didn't matter if the kids didn't like me, as long as you did. You wore plaid so many times I thought you might have been obsessed with Geometry, too, I remember. August, a lifetime ago. When you called me by my first name, you might as well have called me yours. Back then, I truly wished I was. It was the creak of an opening door, I remember. One I couldn't close, still, eight years later.

Reviews

[Vertigo Cat1111]

Okay, where at the reviews? This was so amazing. It really hit the heart, haha! Just the way you worded all of these things... I've found a lot of good stuff on this website, but this one feels familiar to me in the way where I wanna write, even more, something inspired by this. It feels familiar in the way as if it was something I would write, but you executed it so wonderfully, I don't think there's a better way to write this.

'every photograph of us featured me smiling at you, whether you knew or you didn't'

This had to be my favorite line. But also, just... every line of it. Mentioning August, November, Halloween, added so much to it. How did you manage to capture emotions and nostalgia and love so well? I love the touches on rain, too. Rain is very much underrated. Wow. Keep writing, because you obviously are amazing at this.

[Fransivan Writes]

Thank you so much!

[John Alexander McFadyen]

Oh such pathos filled poetry is hard to write with conviction but you nail it and nail it again and again and again. Your prose style is sublime as the detail and emotions merge into a physical entity for the reader. The lines
" I remember. The sky was as blue as my soul. If loneliness had a face, it would be my reflection at the mirror. A portrait of a sad girl you could hang on the Louvre on the first of November..."
are magnificent!

[Fransivan Writes]

I appreciate this (and all of your reviews) SO MUCH. I am so grateful.