POETRY

Even if It Was Only Once

Can remembering love bring joy instead of grief?

Sometimes, after hours of hard work, or right after I have finished cleaning the kitchen, the ghost of future me manages to escape from my control.

She pictures herself making two cups of tea and then carrying them to the living room where, in all of her naiveté, she still thinks she’ll find you.

She can almost see you reorganizing the last of our books and looking at the barren walls planning how to make them beautiful.

Here comes the worst part…

She imagines she would be able to tiptoe her way to you, and surprise you with a kiss on the neck.

Then, she dares dream of lazy afternoons spent on the couch, while we sip our hot drinks and then drink from our warm bodies.

And as she stands still, quite in shock because you are not where she expected you to be, I catch up with her and rein her in.

I’ll have to keep on teaching her it is okay to hope the past remained present, and to try to will the future into a mirror of our fantasies — dreaming is always allowed — but joy turns into grief when we forget to be grateful because love touched our hearts even if it was only once.