Love Poem 36

Old love is one of those things

that always sounds better than it felt

and whose smell we remember being

as fresh as it was the first time we smelled it.

For a moment within a moment

everything clicks in the

perfection of memory.

The old times.

The good days.

The Old Times.

The Good Days

when we kept our selves warm through

skin crushing together

in sweaty throes,

and when the world was

against us

we could press again each other’s back

and we would

empty our lungs

screaming into the void.

We thought about

Sisyphus

and we imagined him happy.

We saw him with purpose,

even in the most purposeless of times.

We never thought about Tantalus.

We never thought about the

less romantic of the condemned.

And that’s old love, isn’t it?

Reaching for that which we need to sustain us

and coming up short by a breath.

And every day that was the case for Tantalus.

Every day stretched for nothing.

Every day tortured by longing.

So, can we imagine him happy?

If he can be happy, can

old love

be something from which we draw happiness?

All the old love,

old pain,

all the old times.

I don’t know if Tantalus can be happy.