A Season of Winter

To the boy—the occurrence—that hounds my dreams still. You had to have known the way my skin cindered beneath yours, and still, I held you. I chased you then and I chase you now, in the form of closure. Incongruous with all things tangible, it would seem that I chase nothing.  Unwillingly, you occupy my conscience. Against fate, I can still recall the delicacy of your touch. In vain, my heart beats, and however you materialize, my breath seeks you. I move on in strata, in seams. In a literary sense, in the seams to each anthology I penned. Allegorically speaking, my healing looks more like layers of the Earth; defined, veering, and known to erode over time—unlike you, forever existing in manuscript.  How does it feel knowing I made you immortal? That while you've become eternal, I've become a paradox? That is, I'm still alive, but it doesn't feel like it. I hold liberty to my name but remain bound to yours and in a multiverse of word and theme, my pen remains loyal to ...