Years ago, A. was visiting her family, and we spent some time together. Neither of us happened to be in relationships at the time, and, after some tentative circling, we drew together again, surprised and moved by how hungry we were for our memories of ourselves. And for a while it was like when we were in high school, and we were lovers again, physically and emotionally intimate in a way that fed us, sated our appetites, like we had in our hands all we wanted from the world. I remember the shape of her mouth when we kissed, familiar and as known--really known--as if it were my own mouth, which it was, and the feel of her body nestled against mine, the shapes and the softnesses, the subtle changes, even then, from the few handful of years before, when we were still together.
I am so grateful, as time goes by, to have experienced such love. Which was not, which never felt fated to be lasting, and we never treated it as such. But we lived it, nevertheless, so fully, that I still feel the comfort of it, the knowing familiarity of it, like a sweater I could put on in the cold. My memories of sensory things--the touch of her tongue, the light of her eyes, the softness of her hips--are so vivid, their ghosts play at my senses, in the space between dreaming and waking. I sometimes wish I could forget the intervening years, casually misplace my maturity, and be again who I remember being then.

best,

paulmonster-remembers