The Warmth of a Frozen Moment

I am standing here because you remembered me, yet I only exist in your memory if I have already been forgotten.
The sun on my skin is a lie told by the ocean; it feels warm not because of light, but because we are trapped in this single afternoon where time has decided to fold itself into an origami crane and sleep.
You tell me you love me for the first time, though I can feel your touch as if we have said goodbye ten thousand times before. It is a delicious contradiction: my heart beats faster with every second that stands perfectly still.
I wear this white bikini not to be seen, but to become invisible within the brightness of our shared silence—a ghost made flesh by desire.
You reach out and brush a strand of hair from my face; your hand is trembling because you know that if we ever leave this beach, we will have never arrived.
The most intimate part of us is not the touch or the gaze, but the paradox that I am healing you with a presence that only exists while I am absent.
I smile and hold my hat against a wind that does not blow, knowing that in our next life—or perhaps our previous one—you will find me here again, waiting for us to begin exactly where we ended.

Editor: Paradox