Your body was the only body that never taught my body how to fear. I loved you for it. And love you still. The brush of your shoulder against mine. My head on your chest. My hand on your back. The touches that could not keep me human, but kept me sane.

The years without you. I wasn’t anchored except for one or two times a year on a familiar shore. I watched you, receding. You waved a hand. I drew away. The earth seemed to fall away from beneath my feet. I would not understand until a lifetime had passed.

I never wanted this part of my life to touch you. Not you. You, who were the last good thing, and the only one I believed would stay. You, who remembered me as I was meant to be: another girl, in another time. Her hair, her smile, the strong bones of her face, all kept alive in your memory although the lines of her were erased long ago by a dark clot of blood.

For that memory, for the fact that you hold it even now, I will forgive you anything.