Temjenwapang Jamir
I am dressed in a blue suit. While she moves past graveyards, as a spirit.
Love, did we fall apart somehow? Or was it destiny?
Until we do
Once, the world bloomed beneath your steps.
Every daisy turned its face for you.
And I, foolishly in love,
Believed heaven had nothing on the curve of your smile.
You were morning dressed in silk.
I was just a man who happened to look up.
But look at us now.
Here I stand, stiff in a blue suit that never fades,
Like my sorrow, ironed into every wrinkle.
The graveyard is our ballroom tonight,
The headstones, our guests, silent and approving.
Your ghost floats... no, you glide—
On tiptoes, across marble tombs,
And I, alive but not really;
Take your hand like it’s still warm.
Your dress is the memory of wind and innocence,
White as the peace I never found without you.
Your hair, a crown of light and loss,
Twists in a breeze that only spirits feel.
You don’t speak. You never have to.
Your eyes hold the echo of a thousand yesterdays.
We dance the dance we never finished.
We waltz around the cruel punctuation of death.
I would let the world rot if it gave me one more hour with you.
I would bury my pulse beneath these stones
Just to rise when you rise,
To be your shadow, your partner, your man in the next life.
But God, in all His Holy arithmetic,
Has drawn a line between us;
Living and dead, breath and mist.
So I hold what I can—your outline, your hush, your ghost.
My queen, my always.
Even death can’t hold you properly.
You’re too elegant for bones,
Too modest to haunt with sorrow.
So I’ll be here, dressed like love never left,
While you walk upon graves like lilies on water.
We cannot meet, not yet.
But I’ll keep the dance floor warm.
Until we do.