In another lifetime, I used to lose myself gazing at you. I smiled when I looked at you because I couldn’t help it, because it was you. We used to hold hands while staring into the star-lit sky, imagining how beautiful it was to be alive in that moment. I remember how many times I looked up and prayed that God would freeze that second as a timeless reminder of how it feels like to be lying next to you. You taught me how it feels like to daydream about someone who is only inches away from you. I used to go to bed every night with your smile carved on my heart and your touch as warm as a burning fire in the biting cold of the winter in the Alps.
You moved me, believed in me, and made me happier than I ever could be. It feels strange now when I think back on our time together, because I can’t even recall the person I was before I met you. It feels like I only started my life on that Friday night I took you dancing. Boy, you were stunning, with that ocean-blue dress lighting up that night. I remember how we danced our hearts to the ground, exhausted but beaming like a thousand stars shining in unison. I went home that night born into a life I could not wait to live with you. Little did I know how brief that life would be, because three years in and I would never see you again.
You left, and you took my heart with you. I know you had to leave, because your family was and you could never leave them behind. I can still remember how your tear-soaked face looked when you were in my arms for the last time. If I knew that I would never see you again, I would have stolen more looks at that beautiful face and kissed you till my lips were drenched with the taste of yours. But I was naïve or hopeful that something that beautiful must have been destined to linger for all eternity. I thought at that instant that what was coming was merely an intermission, that sooner or later I would see you and become resurrected into that life we once shared.
Years have passed, and though the memory of you has never been more vivid, I know that’s what it could only ever be. Because I came across your wedding picture, and your beauty was the only thing that remained intact from our time together. I found myself smiling like I used to, because again, I was looking at you. You seemed to look happy, and I could only wish you the best life you could possibly have, one that could get you to radiate the way you used to on that night we danced under the stars, because what a special sight that was.
I don’t know if I will get a chance to tell you this, but I want you to know that if I were to die now, you would be the best thing that ever happened to me.
They say intense feelings for someone can create an emotional transformation within us that never really goes away. Even when its fire fades with the passing of time, it still lingers somewhere in our hearts for as long as we are breathing. I never really grappled with such intensity before, but then one night, I took you dancing.
