Do Not Think This is A Love Poem

I try to remember you as you were. Stretch my fingers and reacch into the cortexes of my mind for memories I so long for, and my right-brain fingerpaints your lips, eyes, collarbones, breasts, lanky limbs, and crooked smile every shade of beautiful across my hopeful eyelids.

I can still picture you bounding down the sidewalk with the pep of a five year old in your step, crunching through small amounts of late January snow, calling me after you like a puppy (was what we had just pupy love?) and I'd quicken my pace to oblige. I picture you with your flushed cheeks and disheveled hair. The curve of your spine arching like a masterpiece, where my hand always seemed to fit perfectly.

I can still hear your baby Bluebird voice humming to me and in that moment I had so wished I could craddle myself in your vocal chords, within your smooth, sweet, honey tune. We would sing harmonies of New Slang by The Shins and if you'd took to me like I had taken to you maybe our story could have ended up differently, but then I didn't know left from right and the soundtrack of my heart was following you into any dark; Your smile was the only North Star I needed. I was starstruck, lovestruck, and stuck, held steady between your breasts like your hourglass heart in your ribcage prison. No matter how hard I tried I could not get in to flip it over and reset the time.

I can still feel your tiny fingers drowning in my own; Too long for the palms they were held by. Your hipbones jabbing into my side like it was their profession I remember how your kisses tasted like spearmint, and how your lips, soft as egyptian cotton, pressed to mine urgently, as if every kiss was going to be our last. How your poorly circulated extremities would trace my arms, legs, shoulderblades, and my own would travel across your breasts, stomache, and cheekbones. How your breath, like the constant ocean tide, would blow, retreat, and always return.

I try to remember you as you were, because right now you are nothing but a quickly dulling memory.