Sarah Newton-Brown

Embroidered Memory

I fall in love with her every day. I don’t relive it. I’m not trapped in time. There isn’t some kind of special Being guiding my steps. It’s just her. I see all the ways I fall in love with her. All the ways it would be glorious to find her, to see her for the first time. I allow myself to suspend reality; to stay within the canals of fantasy and let her come to life amongst the colour of dreams, amongst the routines and patterns of the day. There’s a small marigold that she has embroidered along the xylophone of her ribcage on whatever she’s wearing. Sometimes I catch a glimpse, sometimes I have to trust it’s there. If I’m lucky, I can feel the rough scar of it as I come close. I’m never quite sure when it’ll happen. But I do know, she’s never more beautiful than when I think of her.