sigil

It goes without saying that I remember that kiss, hard and long as we pressed against that wall. It goes without saying that I remember your lips, strong and fevered as they lingered over mine. It goes without saying that not a day goes by without some trace of you-- some myth, some vision-- crowding into my dull senses. A hint of wisteria, a ghost of the ocean, the smell of burnt oil and the flavor of salt. There is no mystery of me where you are not a suspect, no blown kiss that doesn't pass without the touch of your name. You are stitched beneath each scratching notion, haunting the voices that whisper in my head. Spilled milk and empty hours, you fill the shadows and the spaces.

It isn't so much that I chose this love, as I chose the losing. It isn't so much that you press so heavily from the past, as the future I intended has so thoroughly collapsed. The bridges we burn are as much our histories as the beds we make. The choice, or the illusion of choice-- it all plays out the same. The smell of smoke, the shine of mosquito wings. Irish music on the second biggest amateur night of the year. Sober beneath the wings of owls and the crawl of stars. Tasting tequila while sipping coffee, thinking of you.

These lost loves are such troubled proof--. The litany of love letters saved as evidence against all further alibi, the tears spilled and distance travelled. The others that were better suited towards the particular challenges of this burden, the ones that were left or were always leaving. The debts inherited, the misfit pets, and the books returned unread. Knowing that these desires are the mingling of need and wishing, mistaken fate and star-crossed deliberation combined to cost so much with so little gained. Knowing that to want is to lack, and these tremblings are another shape of self. You aren't the one I would wish upon myself even at my most self-loathing. Yet under these warm dark skies, I can still taste you. The flavor of midnight aches and labors lost, your kiss still marking my location. A sigil marking my blood and breath.