Halcyon

We Loved, Once

It took me a denuded instant
to recognise your fragrance,
your voice, your smile, your face—
and to know you were real,
not one of the apparitions
that echoed through
the back corridors of my sanity.

Oh, that white-sequined dress,
with ivory-threaded embroidery—
the one we bought
on that rain-glazed afternoon
when you twirled, barefoot, in the mirror,
and asked,
"Will it match my earrings?"

I said no.
Not because it didn't,
but because I couldn't let
That moment means too much.
I was performing detachment—
an act you never deserved.

And now, across this gilded room,
under chandeliers heavy with memory,
That same dress glistens.
But it looks different now—
a whole new vocabulary of different.

Not embellished,
like our memories should have been.
Not sacred, but sullied—creased silk,
stretched thin by all the words I left unsaid.
Not flowy,
like the reassurances I whispered to cover the fractures.
Not white, like your face
the night you found me
With the truth I never confessed.

Frayed at the sleeves,
where I once held you too tightly.
A snag at the hem
from the night I never came home.
Sequins dulled—
like the promises I couldn't keep.
Layered head to toe,
like the lies I told to keep you believing.

I always used to wonder if you kept it—
or returned it the day
You faced the raw, inevitable
truth of what I'd become.

We'd become.

Then—

footsteps shuffle. Laughter scatters.
Glasses clink. Applause bursts,
like a memory breaking.
And suddenly—I see it.

Your white-sequined dress,
ivory threads catching light.
Clear. Brilliant.
As you turn
and laugh into his arms.

I see it again—you, in that dress.
But it fits you differently now.

Embellished, rich and radiant, like your smile with him.
Hallowed, worshipped—by the man who now holds you as if you were holy.
Flowy, like joy that needs no hiding.
White, not the empty shade—but full of light, bright shade.
Sleeves hemmed, where he now holds you close, without hurting.

The torn hem restitched—
like the life you've sewn without me.
Sequins shimmering, like promises
he'll keep with his whole being.

No layers now. No pretences.
Just you. Whole.
And Undiminished.

And I feel it—that twinge.
A slow, acid-laced guilt,
settling like dust
on the glass of memory,
resonating the haunted whispers,
of an unliberated phantom-
The wraith of a lost love,
held loosely, by threads of
...endless guilt.