Almost a Figment

I almost let myself be

the untouchable face

impenetrable memory

the photo clutched

by your desperate fingers.

Nearly said, "No thanks"

because I almost had too much pride.

I almost became that figment

of ethereal beauty

that every man holds on to,

but can have only one real life interpretation of.

Pink lips, 

a slow motion memory of our eyes meeting

of the heat of our bodies

of the touch of my

index middle and ring fingers

brushing your undeserving cheek.

You wanted me that badly, once, 

because I was not yours,

but just an unwieldy,

enigmatic marriage of what went before

with what you thought I could never be again.

What was I but an objectification

of beauty and truth,

which you abandoned in the parking lot

on that chilly January afternoon,

forcing smiles in the pit of my misery

that I had not been enough to have been kept

in the first place?

Subtly edging my way

back into reality

and out of your fantasy world

was the best and worst

move I ever made.

To no longer be yearned for

in the same way,

but in a more familiar desiring

what one has as opposed to what

they cannot get

is not inferior.

Just different.