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a wave of shock courses through my head, and it calls out a name that seems almost a blur at first, a quiet murmur, but still there. the sound chants repetitively as you stood there, eyes widen in shock, as if i were an apparition.
satoru.
a name that i recall, a name that fits perfectly at the tip of my tongue, a name that i know i’ve felt in between hushed whispers, soft pecks, and in a spur of touches of laughter that is fleeting.
and unbeknownst to us, an invisible glass wall shatters, the distance finally a meaningless obstacle that could tear us apart. in different lifetimes, you and i have met. my heart tells me this, and it’s sure of it.
in each passing glance, momentous chatter,
your presence would engrave itself onto me,
like artists leaving details of paint on their masterpieces, their trademarks never to be forgotten.
we were artists in a previous lifetime of ours; you who chisels remnants of clay, thumbing, smoothing, and perfecting where each dip and curve accentuate parts of my body and putting it to life, even with the coarseness of its textures, because you think competing with dead artists was your way of finding newfound inspiration and your way of saying that my body is a temple, a divine pagoda, only yours to worship and hold.
but your prayers translate to tongues basking in the saltiness of one’s skin, teeth gnawing at places so carefully hidden that strangers can only know it if they looked hard enough, and the vivid bursts of berries and sugar mixing along the confines of your mouth to contradict the bitterness of my own. and with closed eyes, you’d boastfully demonstrate all the parts where i’m most weak, and it annoys me but pleases you so that it elicits a noise out of me, like petals tumbling out of my mouth, almost as easily as you’ve carved masterpieces made from either clay or bronze. harmonious, fitting for gods to hear, you’d say.
whereas i painted the ocean in cerulean hues, clear as skies, with an endless blue of water that almost feels cool to the touch after each brushstroke that i bind myself to its canvas, reminding me of its muse: eyes that captivate, narrate a thousand words, lure me within a second’s glance. i once thought of it as shallow turquoises: unpredictable, unknown, aloof. but when light pours onto your skin, as brilliant and precious as porcelain, and it finally flushes the torrent buried in those eyes as irises begin to unearth my own, i find myself to be led adrift to the tempestuous tide that swallows me whole.
i vaguely remember these feelings, and so does my soul.
with the old pieces turned and renewed, some things retain and never change.
and now we meet again, different yet not so unusual from when we first met.
our hands finally intertwine, instantly recognizing how it all fits together, how the little space from when our palms touch quietly aches to close the gap, even more, the familiarity of its warmth—when it’s all we could depend on days unkind and nights that brought gloom—now tightly knitted against each other in hopes we won’t lose sight and be whisked away into a void of nothingness.
we cast knowing gazes upon each other, first noticing the small changes in our features; from the crinkles of your forehead to mine whenever it creases, or the dimple that found its way to one of the corners of your mouth every time you flash a big smile, and the room instantly radiates around your aurora, as if it was so common that you simply have a magnetic pull for these things.
you still get tearful each time the flood of our memories return, one by one, bit by bit, and it’s as if we never left. slowly, your lips rest themselves gently onto mine, and i still recognize the shape of it, top and bottom, remembering all too well that each kiss feels like eternity, feels limitless and unbound.
you found me, suguru, you whisper, like a secret that’s only meant for us both.
i smile genuinely, and you make your reaction so transparent that i eventually began to almost wheeze from your disbelief, we found each other, stupid.
it’s almost odd, don’t you think? to be lost in each other’s arms, in more than one lifetime:
a rendition of our silent dedication. a promise we made, perhaps from a long, forgotten millennium. that we’d meet again, to experience a life without remorse.
so we constantly search for the tune that resonates, sometimes symphonies beckon and call, and it grows lukewarm when we’re closer. as if fate tells us that, indeed, we are the destined ones. without you, there’s no “me”, and without me, a “you” won’t exist. fate determines the algorithm to when our paths cross, never once parallel to one another.
because fate can sometimes be kind, so teasing, yet all-knowing of what our endings will be.
in this lifetime and the next, the very thought of resting in the same space with you brings me comfort. but for now, i relish in the comfort of your embrace, time a useless concept to us, so trivial when we’ve more than nine lives to do everything we couldn’t do in the previous.
if tomorrow, or the day after, a new world draws us in, i’ll relive another day searching for you. like two comets, wandering in a vast universe of galaxies and stars, we are the brightest out of them all, and you are the infinite that resounds and extends through time and space, finding your way back to me, to another beginning.
from another lifetime, one that still plagues our sleep of a time when the world was most cruel to us and i to you, i remember the words that came out of my mouth in an attempt to keep you in darkness, close to me yet cold in your silence. but the same words resonate in my chest, now held with a profound intention, an undying commitment.
good night, satoru. let us meet again in a new world.