You Left A Mark On Me

You came in like the mirthful cloudburst
In the middle of the hottest summer
Unexpected, yet so welcome
Refreshing.
Full of life and smiles and joy
So easily did you cascade over
Every inch of every surface
That was the window of my life

Almost nothing didn’t you touch
Leaving unchanged little before my eyes:
Full of life and smiles and joy
You swept away the dust
Showing me worlds hitherto unseen
And brightening all that had been
With dimensions and clarity
That only you could bequeath

On the most blistering of days
When the world without came to a halt,
You didn’t stop.
So full of life and smiles and joy
Without a care for what anyone thought
You found your way to keep on going
Racing, against nobody
But everything that you were

What I failed to see though
Enthralled by your intricacies as I was
Was that where I was Equator
You were Prime Meridian
And our collision, your fountain
Over my glassy worldview,
So full of life and smiles and joy
Was but that single drop of the Atlantic

Without you remain just the fuzzy tracks
You created while making your way
Sometimes I think to reach out
To erase the blurry edges
Of everything you touched.
Sometimes it’s not the edges I see
But how dirty it all seems now
What you had cleaned by simply being.

And every time I do reach out
All I leave are just more smudges.
But it makes sense, I suppose:
It’s hard to forget people
When they simply touch your heart
And you-
Played. Danced. Then left a hundred tattoos.
Do I really even have a chance?