“The hottest love has the coldest end.”
-Socrates

You were there. Like stardust ever dancing in the light as if infinity swirls to you. Your existence declines my being. You waived all presences, defying the mnemonics of what qualifies existence.

You were there—not now.

Before, we were strangers looking at some abyss. After, we are strangers excited of what the future holds for both of us. In between, we are still strangers cursing all pains stinging our hearts.

Time inflicts its greatest wound: recollection. Malt ferments. Soul dies. Mind breaks down. Bubbles in beers imploded to every motion of the hand swaying, wishing it never touched you. Dreams stitched to rags given to wipe dusts and rusts. Time betrayed us, then and again. You were there but not now. Time cursed the being. Time stabbed us causing my heart to burn.

If only I can love you without time minding us all.

Atoms fall. They swerve a little, says Epicurus. Repulsion with others creates the world. That repulsion is a lasting encounter.

What holds that philosophy to be true is antimony. What holds us after all is just an illusion.

When I stumble upon old things finding some boxes, I remember you. When I see your picture in an old frame, forgetting becomes a sickness.

Is there a pill that can selectively erase your fading silhouette in my memory? Confession: I took that pill long ago. My mind fabricates immunity.

You were there in the horizon standing, holding an umbrella, ready to swerve from the rain that once made our love so cold and true.

I was there.

That night, the rain substituted to a poet’s tears.