Superficial Synecdoche

If my memory serves me well

then all that I am able to recall

would be a part of me, defining

my whole existence up until now.

To have a semblance of coherence

with all that amount of information

running haywire across my body

just as I try to remember your touch,

for every ounce of our time together

spent silently gazing towards a future

lost in conversations and heartbreaks

had left us bereft of each other.

Does your pair of quavering eyes

that met mine across the pallid crowd

still search for a face to rest upon?

Do those ivory keys and turpentine t-shirts

that wrapped us in a chromesthesia bliss

now languish in a nostalgic monochrome?

Everything that we owned, all that we had,

we spared each a shared time and place

for everyone else to covet and conceal

our superficial synecdoche.

When they’d edify and deify us

before an inconsequential constitution

of their thoughts, beliefs, and tradition

over our inexperience rooted in innocence,

only for their words and wisdom to twist us

into becoming an example of a cautionary tale;

to be profoundly preached and professed

during sermons and family get-togethers.

Yet the body remembers and reacts still

to the recollection and rumination

of the moment when it turned to your name –

involuntary, immaculate, and precise.