I Memorized the Sound of Your Heartbeat

A cycle of poems «You Taught My Hands How to Pray on Your Body»

I still hear it in silence when the world goes quiet,
A rhythm beneath skin, soft but defiant.
Not a drum, not a song - just a pulse in the dark,
Etched deep in my bones like a fading spark.

I close my eyes and I’m back in your arms,
Where thunder was calm and danger had charms.
Your chest rose and fell like waves on the shore -
Now I’m shipwrecked, adrift, wanting more.

I memorized the sound of your heartbeat,
Steady and warm, where my head used to meet.
It played like a lullaby, safe and complete -
Now it haunts me in dreams where we never retreat.

We’d lie tangled up in sheets worn thin,
Laughing at stars let in through the window’s rim.
You’d whisper, “This moment will always be true,”
And I believed every word - foolish, but you.
Now the bed’s too wide, and the nights stretch too long,
And your voice is a ghost in the morning's first song.

I close my eyes and I’m back in your arms,
Where thunder was calm and danger had charms.
Your chest rose and fell like waves on the shore -
Now I’m shipwrecked, adrift, wanting more.

I memorized the sound of your heartbeat,
Steady and warm, where my head used to meet.
It played like a lullaby, safe and complete -
Now it haunts me in dreams where we never retreat.

Found your old sweater behind my front door,
Still holding your scent like it loves you once more.
I wore it last night as the rain tapped the glass,
And pretended your arms were still pulling me back.
But time doesn’t pause, and love can’t rewind -
Just echoes of you in the chambers of mind.

Doctors say hearts can forget how to ache,
But mine rewrote its code for your sake.
It beats out your name with each labored start -
Even now, even gone… it won’t stop loving your heart.

So if silence ever finds you alone,
Listen close - you might hear it too:
The echo of us, soft and apart…
I still know the sound of your heartbeat.