A Stranger, A Strange Her

I saw someone that looked like you, and I couldn’t help but fall in love again. I couldn’t help but fall in love with a stranger, a strange her. From the blur of a speeding vehicle, I saw the red dress with white dots and ankle-strapped flats. A quarter turn of the head as I catch myself staring, longing, hoping it was you, but it was a face nondescript and only half as pretty. The memory stampedes past the door blowing the hinges from the frame spreading sawdust on the floor of my mind. I thought, by now, my recall of events and you would have faded slowly from the annals, decomposing in the crypt where I kept you. A memory in black and white as the color fades, leaving only outlines and traces. My mind adds shades and hues in the gaps of lost recollections.

Cursed, I say! Cursing myself and words written between the lines of perfect penmanship, depleting ink as I write to you in my mind. I save myself the postage as I care not to send it, and you care not to see it. I instead take pleasure in the good that came of this, in the good of recall and clarity of hindsight, as now the image is less muddled, easier to decipher, and contains a morsel of a smile as I can see you so perfectly, so perfectly in the sun, twirling and twisting telling me of the hours that combine to make a day. The more I think, the more color fills the silhouette adding contour to your shape.

I don’t recommend the dredge, but maybe that’s the point. There is no consent in the makeup of memories: a stranger, a strange her.

Cover Art: "Fading love," by Andrzej Mazu