Ballad of You

The Ballad of you, even though now quiet in the back of my heart, is still there. When you show up in my dreams, it's a call back to the time when you wanted me.

Old text messages of the days when you told me you loved having me by your side. You loved how I made you safe and comfortable. How when I hugged you, it was so hard not to kiss me.

I think of you, not just of how you made my body feel, but how you made ME feel. All lost in you, a flurry of hands and words and kisses.

"Compartmentalizing" you called it, you were so lucky to be able to separate it all. You seemed to have it all figured out, and I was in love when I shouldn't have been.

I miss you, sometimes. I miss how just seeing you made me smile. I miss the way you held me, the way we kissed. I miss your unabashed acceptance of all my faults. I miss holding your hand and being ravished by you.

I miss how your voice sounds. Like the silence under a bridge while it's storming, and the loss of you feels like the other side of that bridge when the rain feels louder and comes down harder.

I am still enamored by you, and I can't tell if it's the absence of you that feels like love, or if it's how my heart aches for you still, even now.

I was younger then, stupid in love, and you were older and knew better. But, that didn't stop us, didn't stop the way we touched and kissed whenever we were the slightest bit alone.

The day I stepped away was the hardest thing I ever did, and I regret not kissing you more. I regret not touching you more, or experiencing you more. The regret of a time where it could have been different.

It's a regret that fills my heart on the off chance you pop into my head or dreams. It doesn't happen often anymore, so most of the time, I even forget the hold you had on me so long ago.  

But the heart never forgets, and when I do remember you, it hurts, and aches and reaches out for you in a way that I know all too well.

A heart flame that never goes out. A small one, still fanned by the memory of you.