I close my eyes and we’re standing in the snow again, just like the first time. I’ve been back a hundred times in my memories, but not with her. Not like this, surrounded by strangers in a kingdom that is not-quite ours anymore. I look into her mind, witness the memory from her point of view. I see myself the way she saw me for the first time. We were so young! Even though we were always so old.
My cheek, pressed against her skin, feels hot. Snowflakes begin to fall and settle silently; I think the crowd around us is murmuring in surprised delight but I hardly hear them. Isra says “I could live a million lives, save a million more, and I would never find another moment as perfect as this,” and I pull her even closer.
I like to think this moment will last forever. I like to think some part of ourselves will always be here, cradled amongst all the other shit going on in the world. And maybe that’s what memory is- not just a moment, gone and past, but a place and time suspended, as though in amber. I like to think that, good or bad, every memory is its own universe.
And if that’s true and some part of me is forever splintered off in this moment, to some future version of myself, any futurer version of myself who cares to ask, I will tell you with a love-drunk smile: “I was happy.”
“We were so happy.”
What else matters? What else will ever matter, you stupid stupid man?
The problem with memory is that you’re never that person again. You can talk to them, the person that you used to be. You can learn exactly what they felt in that moment, and you can understand all the roads that lead them there. But you will never be them. You will never again feel the exact way they felt.
It’s always too late to really understand.
But that’s a problem for future me. What I will always remember about this moment is love. A love for this woman so strong that it rubs off on the world around her; I feel devastatingly in love with this city, these lights, the poor strangers around us. Love for this music, even though music always made me feel not-myself- like my body knew exactly how easy it was to be a drumbeat, a soundwave, a rhythm pressed in dried flesh. And, in comparison, exactly how hard it was to be a man.
The pain of one way of being, the beauty of the other. If only--
If only there were a choice.
(I am-- I am such a fool and a failure.)
“Come with me to the mountain,” my voice sounds thick with sleep, with dream, but I am achingly wide awake. It is the honey of love that slurs my tongue. “Let the gods bless our union.” It’s a question but it’s not. I step away, circle her in a dance with my nose pressed to her shoulders, spine, hips. My hooves crunch softly in the freshly fallen snow, just as it crunched in our beautiful memories. And then I step back, holding her close.
I have always wanted to celebrate our union in a way that was somehow bigger than ourselves, yet it had seemed pointless. What would vows, offerings, or cosmic approval change for us? We had nothing to prove. And I have for a very long time now regarded the gods with a wariness that borders on disrespect. For most of my life all I wanted was for them not to notice me.
But I think- no, I know- our daughter dying has changed me.
And how could it not?
E I K
the world, a double blossom, opens:
sadness of having come,
joy of being here.
@Isra <3My cheek, pressed against her skin, feels hot. Snowflakes begin to fall and settle silently; I think the crowd around us is murmuring in surprised delight but I hardly hear them. Isra says “I could live a million lives, save a million more, and I would never find another moment as perfect as this,” and I pull her even closer.
I like to think this moment will last forever. I like to think some part of ourselves will always be here, cradled amongst all the other shit going on in the world. And maybe that’s what memory is- not just a moment, gone and past, but a place and time suspended, as though in amber. I like to think that, good or bad, every memory is its own universe.
And if that’s true and some part of me is forever splintered off in this moment, to some future version of myself, any futurer version of myself who cares to ask, I will tell you with a love-drunk smile: “I was happy.”
“We were so happy.”
What else matters? What else will ever matter, you stupid stupid man?
The problem with memory is that you’re never that person again. You can talk to them, the person that you used to be. You can learn exactly what they felt in that moment, and you can understand all the roads that lead them there. But you will never be them. You will never again feel the exact way they felt.
It’s always too late to really understand.
But that’s a problem for future me. What I will always remember about this moment is love. A love for this woman so strong that it rubs off on the world around her; I feel devastatingly in love with this city, these lights, the poor strangers around us. Love for this music, even though music always made me feel not-myself- like my body knew exactly how easy it was to be a drumbeat, a soundwave, a rhythm pressed in dried flesh. And, in comparison, exactly how hard it was to be a man.
The pain of one way of being, the beauty of the other. If only--
If only there were a choice.
(I am-- I am such a fool and a failure.)
“Come with me to the mountain,” my voice sounds thick with sleep, with dream, but I am achingly wide awake. It is the honey of love that slurs my tongue. “Let the gods bless our union.” It’s a question but it’s not. I step away, circle her in a dance with my nose pressed to her shoulders, spine, hips. My hooves crunch softly in the freshly fallen snow, just as it crunched in our beautiful memories. And then I step back, holding her close.
I have always wanted to celebrate our union in a way that was somehow bigger than ourselves, yet it had seemed pointless. What would vows, offerings, or cosmic approval change for us? We had nothing to prove. And I have for a very long time now regarded the gods with a wariness that borders on disrespect. For most of my life all I wanted was for them not to notice me.
But I think- no, I know- our daughter dying has changed me.
And how could it not?
the world, a double blossom, opens:
sadness of having come,
joy of being here.
Time makes fools of us all
