Blank and blue

This is a distant memory
one that I thought I'd let go, a long long time back
This is a bird that got away from me
Not that I ever meant to capture it
You seldom do

She's standing there holding a painting of white flowers
glinting soft blue around the edges
Their highlights of cream and wistfulness catch your eye, make you look
make you taste mint and basil
Even as your gaze moves past the painting to the person holding it
And then you see nothing but her

This is a distant memory
I thought would be less painful
One whose edges would have by now smoothed over
But no, it still feels like shards of ice pressing
into my mind
I didn't mean to hurt her
You seldom do

Her honey gold skin I can still picture, her eyes
that held stories, you could just
fall into them
The white dress she used to wear, the one
That would curl around her legs in the wind
The wind that made her laugh, that would stream her hair back so she coud throw her arms wide open and hold the clouds transfixed
in her gaze, the white clouds
that matched her dress, the white dress
that matched the white flowers

This is a distant memory
One that I thought would be stuck spinning forever
Not fully clear, only glimpses that would be finite
I didn't mean to hurt her
You seldom do

I remember our laughter
Hers was beautiful and brilliant, just like the rest of her
And I hated mine, but she told me it was lovely
Lovely
That was her favorite word
Like a little english woman, addressing a vase of flowers 
Flowers like roses

White 

Perhaps

And I remember
I remember how she would turn and see me
and just smile
I remember laying in the grass, side by side
and she would point out her favorite stars
and tell me how soon she'd have to return back up there, to her constellation mountains

And as the sun came up

and the night sky started to fade

So would she

Her arms would reach down and regain her painting from the earth
her painting of white roses, roses that matched her dress
and I was always amazed as her fingers pulled a flower from the painting
and she'd tuck it behind my ear and it felt So Real
And she left me with words as she started to go to mist
and I never know if it was real
So I just wondered

But it stopped when I didn't go
Didn't go to meet her, forgot about the stars
All of it
Life got in the way, I shouldn't have let it
This memory is one I wish I didn't have
I didn't mean to hurt her
You seldom do

I don't know if I did
I don't know if it was real

I always woke up before reality