my girl

8 months in the winter ferns.
i never met her in the heat,
her brown eyes and black hair collecting the sun. she was my girl, quirks and all.
just a body of needing.
she was my girl,
half shut eyelids
staring into something i could never see.
she was my girl,
her whole body pressed into mine
as though we couldn’t get any closer.
sometimes i meet her in a different form,
always the same feeling that tugs straight
from the bottom of my lungs.
it’s in their eyes,
the ones that seem to know something i don’t.
it’s in the way they move in close,
seeming to understand better than i
that they remind me of a girl i love
and who loved me in return.
she was my girl,
yet i always knew i could never keep her
maybe knowing all the precious time
with her was fleeting is why i attach
such longing to my memories of her.
i wonder if she thinks of me,
like i do of her
i wonder if letting go was easier for her,
than it ever was for me.

she was my girl.