Love in Retrospect

For some time I stood on that old bridge, hands on quietly rusting guardrails, remembering old times here. It was here that less than a year ago I lost a friend to the tides below. It was here also that my will became giant enough to begin living completely without her.

In this uninterrupted silence I can almost make out her withered face in the waters ripple; can almost relive the velveteen splash that consumed her forever.

“I remember too” came the childlike voice from behind me.

I didn’t need to turn; I knew she had followed me here tonight to this place that had origins for each of us.

Before I could speak, she began again while resting delicate fingers on my arm. “Do you think I am as beautiful as her?”

A tear came to my cheek, not daring to turn and show my fear. She sensed my reproach and the fingers grew heavier with anticipation.

“There is pain in remembering.” I assert; and for the first time in months am caught contrasting my old life with the present.

“Not today” she says softly.

With this I turn and catch her deep onyx pupils in mine.

In a year she had grown considerably, like a shy young metaphor molting her baby feathers. Still, she varied from love in so many ways. Her spine held her straight, and her flesh was not at all that pouty dappled skin that came from Love’s hard living. She was a tall and thin child of a misbegotten analogy.

The wind rustled the long trees that stood watch on the waters edge, their shimmers echoing beneath our brave metal arch, and two little figures contemplating the drop. It was a breeze made cooler by the contemplation of difficult questions and of analyzing ones self on the nature of his motives.

“I think” I begin; choking on old clusters of foolish recollections. “That you are more beautiful than she could ever be.”

The fingers moved to a grasp as she drew tighter and placed her small chin above my elbow. She continued to stare out above the water that was half lit by the receding moon; but her eyes glowed with acknowledgement.

I recalled all those old nights spent with Love, each a debauchery in the making. Watching her drink and drink until she could handle the accusational glances and harsh hand gestures that awaited her outside of her little apartment. Watching her dress in her tiny rumpled clothes; filling out the seams with her shapeless appendages. She could get anyone to talk, fight or cry; it didn’t matter what she wore. We would be an item on the town, dancing until the night dissolved; and even when the old street monsters burned up at the sight of daylight and had to be swept back into their boxes to recover for tomorrows performance.

Now that I think of it; I only stuck around because I had the belief I could change her. I was jealous and needy; I didn’t want her raucous lifestyle.

I would find her at midnight sleeping in a phone booth, a handful of dimes and saliva. Sometimes it was noon in a rustle of cans and newspapers, strewn somewhere between park benches. I would find her half asleep, fingers splayed and etching out her own misery in the dewy sky. Each of these times could have been the first or the last for all I knew, it was a habit to pick her up and dust her off. It was also casual to make excuses for her and her myriad of habits. She was languid and unreliable, motile yet very unproductive. For metaphors that have been recently demoted from virtues, she was a serious piece of work. It was not uncommon for her name to be shouted from the rooftops, yet at the blink of an eye she was responsible for thrown dishes and broken families. She was the love child of Aphrodite and the tree of fickleness.

All this negotiating around delicate verbal territory and one can forget why they are here tonight.

I feel those dark eyes across my face; those comforting irises that have followed me through every day since Love decided the world was better without her farce. Those same lidded gems that took my hand when all that I knew about the world was inhaling dark corrosive water. Those same hands that led me here tonight to stare at the pitch beyond.

“It’s easiest to learn from loss.” I say, reflecting on her light touch. It was a tender hand designed to comfort.

“You still haven’t given me a name…”

I stood awestruck, realizing that in all these months there was nothing I would call her. A dozen months spent with each other, and no name seemed to fit her. She was a budding young presence, each day making her charisma more evident; and yet of these traits I could not embody a single adjective to assume her.

Her eyes were still content, focused on a distant boat light yet somehow assuring me from her periphery.

“Compassion…” I say steadily, checking up at the mottled Luna.

Her face turns to me as I finish my pause, and before her lips could unfold I put a warm hand on her little shoulder.

“I think compassion would be the metaphor that one day follows you home from a long empty night of living and from that moment on grows by your side until it is large enough to blot out the blackness…”