STAIN

Locked behind, I look on, staring at this damsel dazzling. She ages fine like wine, all cute and divine. The kind of beautiful that doesn't need permission to ruin you. They say time heals all wounds. Bet they never considered memories. Bet they never had someone carve themselves into their chest and refuse to leave.

It's been a year. A whole year of her name sitting on my tongue like a prayer I'm not allowed to say out loud. Miles of uncertainty stretch between us now, distance measured not in kilometers but in silence, in unanswered questions, in the space where her voice used to live. Maybe she's forgotten all about me. Maybe I'm just another face that blurred into her rearview, another boy who couldn't hold on tight enough.

But me?

I still light up when I see her on my phone. Still catch my breath when her name appears. My brain is a traitor;it forgets appointments, loses keys, can't remember what I had for breakfast, but her? Those brown eyes? Those lips that curve just so? The gentle slope of her curves, the way she moves through space like she's conducting an orchestra only she can hear? My brain holds those details like sacred texts. Won't let them fade. Won't let them blur. Keeps them sharp and vivid and so real I could paint her from memory in the dark.

That's the stain, you see.

 Not the pain. Not the longing.

 But the permanence of her.

The way she's soaked into my neurons, dyed my thoughts in shades of her, left marks that time can't scrub out no matter how hard it tries. I remember the way her eyes catch. Lightbrown, like honey held up to the sun, deep enough to get lost in and call it home. I remember her lips, cute in that way that makes you want to write poetry you'll never be brave enough to share, the kind of lips that make you understand why people start wars and write songs and do stupid, reckless things.

I remember her curves, not just the obvious ones, but the subtle architecture of her: the curve of her shoulder when she laughs, the way her spine arcs when she's focused, the gentle landscapes of her that I memorized like I was studying for a test I'd never take.

She moves like music I can't unhear.

 Exists like art I can't unsee.

And I'm just here, stained and grateful, ruined in the most beautiful way.

So let the winds carry this to the one and only. Let it travel those miles of uncertainty and land wherever she is now, doing whatever she's doing, being whoever she's becoming. Dear Maker, You blessed me with Your finest art. Gave me eyes to see her, a heart to hold her (even from this distance), and memories that won't fade even when I beg them to.

I'm not asking for forever.

 I'm not even asking for always.

 I just want a moment.

One more moment to share with her, to tell her she's the reason I believe in divine design, to thank her for being the stain that made me more than I was before I met her. She made me a believer. In beauty. In grace. In the kind of love that doesn't need reciprocation to be real. And I'll always appreciate You for this awesome one. For letting our paths cross, for giving me this beautiful burden to carry, for marking me with her.

And this stain, 

this permanent, indelible mark she left on my soul

Is the only proof I need that something holy happened here. That I loved. That I was changed. That I was blessed enough to be ruined by someone worth remembering.

2 AM thoughts from someone who forgot how to forget

husH