Keeper

I’m not ashamed of loving someone I’ve only met once. It was almost a moment forgotten. Some meeting place on the corner of a side glance.

He came walking to me from a long distance, a length others would consider uncomfortable. I may not have noticed at first, this bold and unwavering advancement towards me. My eyes were kept on the steps in front. Strips of smooth green perennial leaves lay glistening against each other, arching a path towards the fence. I looked up to wonder at this new person, this second introduction. The first, growing tales of bravery, a true keeper of the golden rule.

Lording over his two sniffing mastiffs I should have been nervous, but instead, a familiar quake within me. He hadn’t stopped trying to find my eyes, and now that he had them, his silence became the triumph of his stare. I must have been smiling, but it turned sideways with my head unexpectedly. I’m not accustomed to revealing my location on deep heart matters so instantaneously. Bashfulness tickled the end of my cheekbones further. Just above where laugh lines cradle, a vision of legacy. He remained unflinching, studying me, giving me graces in rare form. He was watching for honesty, and instinctually, my body became more aware of itself. I didn’t look away.

He let someone else introduce me. Organic delicacies crushed under the sudden urge to stand at attention. A difference of height still towering, he looked straight into my eyes. The thrill of this was masked with some knowing: we’ve found each other again.

How does one translate the recycling energies of the universe through a handshake? A touch reunion, a greeting beyond centuries. Buried under sand and cigarettes these ancient relationships rise from the deception of linear waves.

Time slows down and plays for keeps. What is time but a way to record? What is this relation to time except through senses?

One gives only in serving water, blessed be.

An old saying. A strange time to remember. When a Hologram is triggered, memories form through audio tones from the moisture of bones. I’ve kept my foot at the threshold. Opening a Hologram is illegal and potentially harmful, yet..

Here I am, hacking into a story of the past without the trust of its owner as guidance. He should really be here. But he will be here. But nothing. Don’t do this.

Here I am.

The secret voice says it back. A humming of another memory begins. It’s in a future I’ve lived before. A place when words have other meanings, fumbling around smiles, and again the distance. There comes a moment to say goodbye. I give you my most earnest embrace, where only one side touches because trust is still budding. When we let go, it’s in the parting that I want to hold most. As we move away I keep a finger gliding around the shape of you. A whisper way of asking permission. For keeps. Bold, but before you notice, your heart through skin walls says yes.

This is why I will always find you.

It must have been somewhere between the desert and the sea when we last took a breath together this close. Three thousand years ago. Around the hard knocks of a heart-shaped locket there’s a quiet space before opening. This is how I remember you, where you stay until I see you again.

Hot tears startle me. Focus. My whole body is feeling the warmth of light through molecules now. I must be locked in. I can always tell before a Leap.

Past and future have the same origin here.