For this moment.
By Cielle Marie
It’s December, and right now I’m under two blankets desperately trying to remember the summer instead of focusing on the cold, as if just thinking about 30°C weather will bring it back.
In June this year I went on holiday to Turkey; it was absolutely heavenly, and I fell in love with someone extremely briefly – but for that moment, it felt so real. Holiday romances tend to give you rose-coloured glasses. However, I’m not complaining, it’s an experience that I loved. He didn’t speak English. We communicated via Google Translate and holding each others’ hands, and it felt like a rom-com waiting to happen, so obviously I wrote a poem about it.
i’m by the beach sitting at a glass table
holding a drink that i’m already too drunk for
while the man i’m currently in love
is standing over by the bar,
looking like the type of dream i go back to sleep to have.
we’re going to dance right by the pool table
and he’ll pull me close like i’m the answer to all his prayers,
my body that he’ll hold tentatively
as if he’s afraid of the addiction i’ll cause, and
yesterday he stroked my cheek
and moved a single braid from the side of my face
like he’d done it a million times before in a past life;
he placed his lips on my neck in a way that even
the most romantic of folk would feel bashful seeing;
put his arms around my waist routinely but
really, it was the first time.
for this moment,
his arms are the safest place i’ve ever known.
for this moment,
i forget the past and he is my present and my future.
and i admit it —
i fall too hard and fast every time
for the sake of a fleeting flirtation
but for this moment, i know that he did too.
he squeezes my hand and gestures to my phone,
and i remember that everyone speaks the language of
holding hands until one’s heart bursts,
the electric shock of touching each other’s arms
on a hot, hot night fizzing with romance,
and it can only be a happily ever after on the cards
when he calls me the sweetest girl,
and scoops me up in his arms on the sand
as if he is scared to lose me.
next thing we know, we are together for hours
until the sun slips between the night’s open hands.
from the moment i laid eyes on him though,
i knew the end was near.
now i’m miles away and my bones ache for him
and i’m trying to have him in any way i can.
i burn for his presence
like a fire i have never felt before.
my legs will be on another man’s shoulders
while i remember how they almost gave out
when he touched me for the first time —
i’ll keep crying out for the escape he gives me
until we’re together again
and i wear a beautiful dress to the bar,
squeeze his arm and ask for a drink.
i have never hoped more that history repeats itself,
that i’ll be by that beach sitting at that glass table
holding a drink that i’m already too drunk for.
