Hold On To A Moment

I hold on to a moment, far longer than I should, I know. I hold on to a day, or an hour, where you made the world stop, where we were young and beautiful and in love, where we were untouched by our own shortcomings, if only for a moment.

We were untouched by dissatisfaction, or promises, or priorities. Untouched by all the things we should have done. I hold on to the moment where we were brand new, and there was snow in your hair and you waited for me near the twinkly lights and said my eyes could see right through you.

Being with you is like watching water boil with my hand in the pot, waiting to get burned. Still you envelop me when I try to resist, because you know that if you get close I will breathe you in and my skin will remember and it will grasp for a touch it has longed for.

I think about you in the depths of moments, where I should be thinking the least. I think about you walking down the street, hand on my back, my mind full of old disappointments and my heart telling me to run and my body telling me to stay. 

I think about arguments in the kitchen and burned bridges and words I shouldn’t have said and things you should have done. Still, I hold on to a moment. I hold on to stealing kisses in the corners even though they were fleeting and most of the moments were hurling vases at each other and saying I’m sorry, saying I’m sorry but this is who I am.

And I think sometimes, that maybe if I hold on to that moment for long enough it will stretch. Stretch out so that it covers up everything else, becomes like a putty that turns everything pink and holds it together. I think maybe if I hold on to that moment just long enough it will become everything.

It will become you and I and it will soften all of the edges, and we will be held together in an embrace that is not broken, that is not shattered. Just because you have all the pieces doesn’t mean the house is worth putting back together again.

I walk down the street and my heels clip the floor because I walk loudly and quickly and listen to music that tells me love is unending and love is unrelenting and I believe the crooner in my ear on all counts. Each step I take reverberates on the concrete, goes up my legs and through my arms and into my neck and out my ears.

My hands are set in tight fists and my breathe comes out in a cloud of smoke and it’s pushed into my eyes making everything a little bit blurry.

I hold on to a moment, with tight clenched fists, with my heart on the floor, with my head in my hands, with a fearful hope. 

I hold on, to a moment that has become warped and coated in warm light and buffed so that the rough edges don’t show. And I know. I know eventually my hands will give way, but I still hold on to a moment. 

Daniel Tafjord

Zoo