If
Time is a war crime then the evidence
Lies
not in what it does to our bodies,
But
how it slaughters our minds.
Memories
pile on top of each other like
Bodies
in a pit caked with dirt and lime.
Maybe
that is what dementia is:
Simply
having seen too much of this?
We
search in vain for survivors,
Among
them our "first love",
A
foothold in the darkness
We
strive in vain to climb out of.
Who
was this person that made us,
Formed
us from rough clay
With
a touch, a look, a kiss,
Acts
so pure and true
They
haunt us until the last
Light
of consciousness blinks out?
We
imbue them with a power
They
could never hold in life,
A
might born of the weight of years
And
our own need to feel
That
all this living was not in vain.
I
close my eyes and see her:
Skinny
and bright eyed in a short dress,
Us
facing each other, chests heaving
After
an arduous chase through
A
schoolyard full of children running
From
whatever was chasing them,
The
two of us ending up in the boys toilets,
Her
face a luminous dial of excitement,
The
thrill of the forbidden visible
In
her twitching fingertips as she
Bounced
on her toes and searched
For
an escape from the kiss she knew
Was
coming, my heart thrumming
Inside
my chest like an insane drum
As
I moved in, my head light as if hit
By
a fist of pure need to put my lips
Against
her lips and have that thing
That
was her: her trembling, her sweat,
The
hair on her arms, the dip between
Where
her nose ended and her mouth began...
She
dodged me and ran,
But
that sensation sunk its hot iron
Into
the fleshy pulp of my young self
And
branded me a romantic, one doomed
To
search for this moment again and again,
Until
my last breath leaves me cold
And
insensate as a stone.
But
I will not be alone,
For
memory is as vital as oxygen
And
I will dig with bare bloody hands
Until
I drag my first love from her grave,
So
we can once again stand as we did
And
know what it means to live.
©
shaun patrick green 2018
