these summer nights

I think of you. I hold the dark glowing embered clove between my fingers, the evening summer wind caresses the nape of my neck and I think of you. I wonder where you are. I remember those perfect summer nights with fine wine and even better company. My body shudders with a deep sigh: confession of a lingering love. I don't think one ever "gets over" a love like that. We move on, we grow, we live. But you were a part of me, pieces of you are still stuck in me and I'm quite certain you get whiffs of me when beauty strikes your heart a certain way.

Do you remember those leather seats with the wind whipping through your car? You hated the wind, I loved it. You and I, fire and wind. We were a constant contradiction, but somehow for that brief season we complimented, we completed, we were.

I hope you are healing. I am healing. I am seeing the things in me that you reacted to, the pieces of me that hated you for being born a man, and me for being born a woman. I am seeing the season, the goose chase, the difficult tenderness that was so confusing, I am seeing it for what it was. Nothing more, nothing less.

You opened up the beauty inside of me, even if you never meant to, you did. I'm not sure how it all works, I just know that I don't understand. I don't understand how years later I have a clove and the smoke and summer wind pulls me into this tender place of reminiscences. This is how memory is suppose to be. I am very aware of all the things that were terribly dysfunctional about us. But I am choosing to remember you in those moments of overwhelming revelry, discovery of beauty. I am choosing to remember how I felt beautiful, ironically, because of you.

Do you remember that conversation, I think it was in May, before we graduated? We were sitting on that wood deck outside of the Annex and we realized that we were healing from the same disease this whole time. I still think that we are healing from the same disease, we just couldn't do it together anymore.

I hope that the poison from feeling abandoned and betrayed has not marred your memory. I hope that there are moments of reprieve in which you remember with clarity the pure enjoyment of life together with people who loved you, and whom you loved.

After all of this time, I've come back round to love. The grief has run it's course. I hope to see you again. I hope you let me past that mask you wear so well, so convincingly. I hope you forgive me, completely, permanently.

I hope you are enjoying these summer nights.