Time

Artwork: Coco Do Breizhoù (@cocodobreizhou on Instagram)

"Have him call me," he said simply as we sat at the café together three years after our summer together in Paris.

Time was having her way with us.

I looked carefully for proof of the time passed on his face and I could barely spot it. I caught a glimpse in his eyes but found myself lingering there beckoned by something familiar.

Enter chemistry, like an old friend who knows us both better than we know ourselves. It was never the chemistry that got in the way...

A few deep inhales of this friend's perfume just for old times sake, but it lands flat with time in my ear reminding me of the poetry I strung together with the pieces of my heart that were left in an airbnb just a few miles from where we sat.

...a whole book full of heart pieces.

The gift of this day was the look on his face when I shared a small bit about where my heart has been since we last sat together, and his wanting to share his different version with the last keeper.

Sudden perspective added to stern looks and tone, from a fellow Frenchman - turned American, caught me off guard.

I floated somewhere between the Spritz and page 123...onto page 126...in the "clouds of Krishna blue" on page 127...spirts...dust...flushed...landing squarely on page 133...I floated back into the moonlight on the beach in Saint Tropez, every second choreographed to perfection...

"Ramatuelle," he said, his words anchoring me again. An apparent answer to my mumbling about the beach and the color...

Sarcelle...page 133...of the water on a day I will never forget.

And it seems strange suddenly how close I've come, with an advocat(e) for a former lover, to the elusive love I yearn for.