Remembrance

I smile, softly, the kind you always loved;
The kind that reaches my eyes.
Though deeper in those eyes,
deeper than you noticed,
A quiet sadness gazes from beneath the surface.

I mean my smile, I mean it.
I smile at the memory.
I smile at the thought of what used to be.
Because my heart remembers  
More profoundly than my mind,
More deeply the emotions than the details.

My heart remembers so much that the memory spills from it,
Pouring into my veins, tingling down my spine.
It seizes my stomach into knots of remembrance.
Muscles reject this non-reality, and deny it in quivers.
Feelings that have passed, turned to ashes and blown away,
Fill my entire body as wholly and vibrantly as when first they were born.

I can’t reconstruct the scene of every intimate moment.
I can’t paint the picture of every memory that fills my heart.
I can’t tell you where, or when, or what you wore, or what you said.

Because my heart remembers
More profoundly than my mind,
More deeply the emotions than the details.