Memories of a Love Lost

He was divine. His alabaster flesh...sinewy, smooth, hard. Forearms rich with rather pronounced indigo veins. Inner wrists with the thinnest silken skin. Slender yet strong hands complete with long fingers. A simple silver band on his left middle finger. His left bicep tattooed with a tortured fanged skull. He was very slender, elegant and defined. He kept his black hair slicked back, but let a few small pieces hang loose and carefree. The way he would glance down his Italianate nose, over the top of his glasses...his eyes - the greenest when he was happy, elated, or amorous ; but god-forbid they turned grey when he was in one of his states of unrest, depression or sadness. His lips were thin yet soft and feathery and would me render me senseless. His face was angular with high cheekbones and slightly sunken cheeks. He was thin, but ridiculously strong. His stomach muscles taut, complete with delicious hip bones that lead to his breathtaking sword.

Our love is eternal. It will never dissipate. It haunts me...

I was young and reckless, and it was doomed from the start. He was older, but boyish in his priorities. I was 16 and he 22. He moved from job to job, had no car, and a son he sired with another woman. But he loved me. Unconditionally. When my parents found out, he called and begged my father for my hand in marriage as I writhed and sobbed on the frigid kitchen floor. He poured his heart out but my father wouldn't listen. For a little over a year we only spoke on the phone - in secret. Vowing to find each other and be together forever.

Time passed. When I was 21 for a brief moment in time we found each other again, but the timing was all wrong. It wasn't right... didn't seem right. A few months of borrowed days brimming with endless passion, in the shadow of black fluorescent bulbs and candle light. Swathed in cigarette smoke and glittering with beads of sweat. That was 7 years ago. We are now 28 and 34 respectively. Does he think of me? Does he dream of me? Does he barely fight the urge to find me? I do all of these things... Why was I a coward? Why didn't I seize the opportunity? I cannot say...

Henceforth, I am haunted... I suppose it's my punishment for being selfish and vain. My punishment for fearing that we would forever be poor and struggling. I remember telling him when I was 16 that I would happily live in a cardboard box if it meant we could be together.

We always believed in the saying Love Never Dies. It is very true for me indeed. If I could only know for certain that he still loved me.

I entertain the thought that he comes to me in my sleep. Or perhaps that he is an immortal and that if I think of him hard enough, long enough that he will sense me and materialize in front of my very eyes and carry me into eternity. Like a fairy tale meets a gothic novel... what can I say? My imagination runs wild to make sense of things.

I look for him in crowded places - straining to spot him in the throngs. He never appears... I try to pretend that he is gone forever - committed to sunken, hollow earth. But I know he is alive and well. It's the only way to forget him for a moment, a few days or even a month. Something always pulls me back. The smoke from a Newport menthol cigarette, the green eyes of a male stranger, the flavor of pink Starbursts, knowing that he would find me alluring in this or that outfit or heaven forbid - a dream so vivid and lifelike - so tangible that I can almost feel his delicious sweet breath upon me...that I wake up in complete anguish and on the brink of tears because it wasn't real.

What I wouldn't give to kiss him again. To touch and worship him again. To surrender to his chivalrous charms and lusty lashings. To once again rake his muscular back with my nails in the throws of passion, to break the surface of his flesh, to taste aforementioned wounds with my tongue. To feel his seed searing my rosy womb again and again. To lay in his arms for one last night even if it meant certain death at first light.

If only he knew. I would find comfort and solace if he knew. I would even perhaps be able to distance myself from the longing urges if he knew. Damn it all... if only he knew all that I feel. The regret, the pain, the fear, the guilt, the lust, and above all the everlasting, undying love.