Lovely

By Muriel Palanca

I can never love you more than I do now.

I won’t let myself, because

I tasted her on your lips tonight. She tasted like

Summer watermelons and golden apples,

Like saltwater from an unexplored ocean,

Or maybe it was remnants of your guilt.

And it was bittersweet, one more so than the other

But I can’t decide.

Her scent of lilac floats like wisps of a midnight cigarette,

Carried in your firm embrace; the one you always give me

When you are trying to hide your mistakes.

But I can feel her with the beating of your heart

As I press against your chest.

She thunders inside you, warming you like the glowing

Hearth of a winter’s fire, creating a network of sparks

In the canyons of your solitude.

You never let me in. Your armor remained too unyielding for me to

Break through.

But she did.

She painted you like a battle does a soldier,

Leaving scars of your victory.

She left her signature on your neck, scored your back with her promises

And reignited the dying twinkle in your eyes.

She touched you where I could never reach and

You spilled your secrets between her cotton sheets. You gave her

Everything.

And the more you pushed me away,

The more you pulled her back because you never want to lose her.

She’s lovely.

And you never belonged to me.