i.
You deceived me into thinking it was the first
time I saw you standing out in that crowd, in
this park, I thought you reminded me of someone
beautiful I glimpsed when as a child I was
brought here to play.
It was also the only time we met when we were
as young as each other,
ii.
because inside the year that followed I found
you again and you were the same - same look,
same age that day a year back, this time without
a crowd to conceal your voice,
although I only caught a few words when
you realized I was gaping as you talked to thin
air, and you ran, around that huge fountain,
and what choice did I have but run after you,
only to find no trace of you at all? I began
iii.
to try to understand what manner of muse you
were, but you eluded description as much
as you eluded me. But I
had an idea and I composed the perfect note to
reassure you into staying next time, I took
great lengths to mask it from the rest of
the world, to make it so that it could only be
read by you:
I wrote it in fragmented words and phrases
scattered across a week in a way only someone
traveling forward through time can find, and you
iv.
agreed to a tryst. I opened slowly with learning
the things you liked, wary of chasing you away.
That when you let me in I was -
I was. I was.
You said, “Thank you for not bringing up
the V-theory,” and I said, “V-theory?” And
you said vampire, I said it crossed my mind and
I earned your smile, and I finally found
v.
courage to ask if you were a time traveler.
I was sorry that what I said saddened you, but
I was grateful that you stayed and told me how
myself and the rest of the world were the time
travelers - you told me
how the Earth moved on and forgot to wait for you
to land whenever you leapt off the ground. I was
sorry
vi.
to hear of the time of your childhood when
your father tossed you up in the air and you
disappeared from them and you broke your arm
landing in the same room a day later, I was
sorry to hear of the times you were accused of
cutting classes or the like, but I was curious so
I asked if you had learned to control it, and
you stood up from the park bench we were seated
on, and said, “Well, if I jumped an in-”
and you were
vii.
gone.
viii.
I waited for you
ix.
and I was close to erasing a sandwich off
existence when you went, “ch, I only lose an
afternoon,”
And with an endangered piece of sandwich in
my mouth you gave me a second smile and I knew
then that I fell for you, not for the stories of
time traveling and broken bones and the mysteries
and theories and science fiction and non-fiction
and magic,
just, you.
If only you loved me back. I knew I was
x.
a mere second to your years.
But I was content to listen to you, and when you
told me of something amazing you did, I was too
smitten to stop myself from exclaiming, “Wow,
what can’t you do?” And you regretfully had
that distant dreamy look, and you said,
xi.
“Skydive,”
And I never saw you again.
xii.
xiii.
I did not need to see you, even if I still had my
sight. I caught your scent, the same smell that
eluded words as the rest of you yet was my
anchor,
and before you spoke I already knew how you
would sound like, you sounded like a song trapped
in a sestina, the familiar rises, the familiar
falls, the same melodies of syllables flying off
but tethered to the ledge of your lips, all woven
across the years, and I was sorry that you
had to see me like this, and I was thankful for
letting me imagine I got a third smile before I
went,
and you asked if I was at peace here, and I said
HELL NO, and I asked if you could take me
elsewhere so you slipped in beside me and you
took me in your arms and you pulled me close
and we rolled off the
2015.oct.04
