Five Minute Friday: Loss

Crowd pressed around, smells of the city.

Dirty, gritty, gas and oil.

Concrete and asphalt.

Sweat and perfume.

People press and I push it down.

Then a scent ribbons past me.

My head turns, nose up wolfish.

I know that scent, that memory.

Turning, I scan the crowd.

Searching for the impossible.

You are gone, long since gone.

Your voice faded away,

your face soft and distant.

That scent brings it all back!

That smell of you!

Scents, I wish I could see how

They carry memories so light.

Twisting ribbons of scent

tangling my heart, twisting my mind.

Just one instant and it all comes back.

Losing you, missing you, holding you.

Our last words an argument.

Our last night talking in a pick up truck.

Me fighting, you quitting.

Strangled with a second of scent,

that noose of a memory.

Then, in tears, I realize it is gone.

I seek with my nose, my heart, my eyes.

That crowd, improbable and dense.

Finding you there, a delicate thread

of memory strung along to my heart

all the way by the scent of your memory.

Losing Kelly was the hardest grief, it was and still is the loss of a friendship and a love that never truly got a chance to fully bloom.  


Shared on Gooseberry Garden: http://gooseberrygoespoetic.blogspot.com/2011/10/poetry-picnic-week-7-love-and-loss.html