It’s the little things that I remember with the greatest poignancy, most of them existing only in my mind. She would likely be shocked and disturbed by things running through my crazed brain.

The first time I saw her, sitting at the far end of the table, I remember my breath catching. We were introduced briefly, but I didn’t say a single word to her that night. It was unlikely that she would ever notice me, and I did not think of her, at least not deliberately. She was, and is still, perhaps the most beautiful woman I have ever met, and as I got to know her from afar, I realize that her inner beauty outshines her appearances, if you can believe such a thing.

There was the time I found myself unexpectedly facing her on the dance floor, her friends having inexplicably flanked her, and I still cannot bring myself to believe it was deliberate. I do not even remember the song that was playing. I can only recall my sense of astonishment. Maybe I did just dream it.

And then that small little note, just one sentence, that she once left me letting me know that she did know that I existed.

The time we sang a love song together for fun, in jest, me trying to keep my voice from quavering.

These memories of driving, just shooting the shit, about anything and everything.

But it was her kindness and her tenderness that struck me deep in my heart, like a barbed wire, sharp and fine, yet catching and pulling, and I think I have wriggled helplessly, haplessly, like a plinthed fish all this time.

This woman, beautiful and brilliant and funny, no one’s fool, and yet despite her strength, despite her will to defy the world, she still remembers child-like glee. Her smile, her laughter can always chase the darkness from my heart. I am always reminded of the sun.

There were those days of my exile, in that dark land where I was cold and more alone than I have ever been, and I thought of her much, knowing with dark despair that there was nothing I could do, as she fell in and out of love with other men, and I cursed my folly for falling for one such as she, wondering what the hell I was thinking. It was better that I forget, and dream no more.

But in quiet moments, her face will flicker in my mind’s eye, overwhelming me, and I can’t help but feel that I am cursed, to have known someone such as she, and to yet know that there is no way save selling my soul to the devil or miraculous, divine intervention that my vain hopes might come true.