We are swaying on your hometown beach. Flowers bloom where they should die. The breeze is gentle as I wish you’d been. I am singing “La Vie en rose”
mispronounced without care, because love has made the world beautiful, not because love has made me blind. Or maybe you are singing
the one you wrote for me, never the same key twice and with words I forgot on purpose but if I tried I know I would remember
exactly how you sound when you say “bliss.” One of these songs has made us the envy of a woman scorned. Her fish-eyed gaze
cannot look away, tormented even in dreams by our laughter rippling across the multiverse.
Luckily, I have nothing to mourn. Not the light through your curtains nor the way it yellowed moments
into memories even as they were unfolding. Not the day we stopped fucking because we remembered a stupid joke
at the same time mid-thrust. I thank God for knowing you, instead of saying “Yes, I grew from it, but at what cost?”
I have no reason to regret being kind to you and possess faith eternal as the creamy sand. We are barefoot by the sea and you are kissing me without thinking of anyone else. The bad things never happened. There is nothing to forgive.
Camille Aguilar Rosas recently finished her undergraduate degree in English Literature at the University of the Philippines Diliman. She lives with ADHD and a twelve-year old calico cat. Her works have been previously published by Inklette Magazine, Déraciné Magazine, and Papeachu Press. Twitter and Instagram: @camoodles.