Remembrance
I haven’t had the urge to write in a long time. But now, looking up to the less than 24 hours we spent together, I desperately feel like I need to let it out. It would help if I know how, but then I found myself lacking words, a contradiction of my swirling mind. Would it help to start from the beginning? Where even is the beginning? As if I could pinpoint the first time I laid my eyes on you. I couldn’t.
I could still remember that tick of time where you looked straight into my eyes and asked for my name, I could feel it so far away, though it was only last Saturday. Today is Saturday, should I mark that passage of time, or should I leave it untouched? I wonder now, what were you thinking that night. Did you know that you would have this much hold over my person, my mind? You shouldn’t, it is unfair that you do. But still, I could feel the touch of your hand on my shoulder, the smile you gave me when I simply said “Syifa.”
Do you always give people their best kiss when you’re drunk? Was it the alcohol in your veins or was it the lack of experience in mine? The moment you put your hands behind my head, I should know better than to leaned in and let you. Bad ideas always come in pretty packages, they always know when to hit where it most hurts. The gate was wide open and I should have locked it down, run and never looked back. But I did, looked back, that is.
They said it was curiosity that killed the cat. I thought one night wouldn’t hurt, I was a fool to myself and to everybody else. I made a liar out of this shell. The Irish pub was packed, you got us two pints of beer, the biggest I’ve ever had. The contour of your nose was what I looked at most last night, also the way you talked and the way you laughed. Why do you have to speak like that? So soft and so slow, as if you want to taste each word before you let it out. I had to lean in, and you had to speak into my ear. The band was playing in the background, I kept on looking at them for the off chance of you looking at me while I did so.
I was drunk and hazy when you held my hand. You held it all the way across the place where we first kissed. Your car smells like you, so much so that I had to hold my breath lest it overwhelmed me. I talked loose, and told you everything that ran through my foggy head. I told you the embarrassing moments I’ve had as if it would soothe the pounding of my heart. You smiled and laughed, said the right things for the right situations. You looked into my eyes every time and I sorely wished you didn’t.
You were always blunt, spoken like a true Leo that you are. You asked if you could kiss me, just like the last time. I said yes, and I dare not think of the answer shall you ask me again next time. There won’t be a next time, I should have told myself that before your lips touched mine. Do you have a penchant for holding hands? Is that why you held mine and ran your thumb through the crevices of each finger? Did you feel the texture of them? I am sure that you did not do so to remember them, but I feel like a fool for saying that the feeling of it won’t leave my mind anytime soon.
I remember running my fingers through your hair, the softness of it felt like a contradiction of your harsh breath. You ran your hands through the locks in my head, mirroring the gesture I did in that moment, as if you wanted to give me the calmness I gave you. The small things stayed with me. The water bottles, the lighter, the door, the soft touch on the dip of my hip. The conversations, amongst other things, branded me like a hot plane of a fired up cane.
How can a week feel like seven days for some people but feel like forever for others? It feels like a pathetic thing to ask as I write this down in a friend’s room, wearing the shirt I wore last night. Do you know that it smells like you now? It does and it makes me want to keep it in a museum of heartbreaks I have in my head. Is it a sin to dare dream of more? Wishing for more times of hearing your soft-spoken words, wishing for more kisses and more hand holdings, wishing for more time. But as I am writing this, and realizing the current predicament I am in. I know that I have to make do with the Instagram stories, the Spotify activities, the occasional replies, the probabilities of meeting you in that pub. I spent so much times fearing that this might not be casual, that the reality of it being that has punched me in my gut.
Hoping the Norwegian people would have the pleasure of experiencing you. So long, Leo.
