If time could fly backwards instead of forwards, could I love you in reverse?

In the beginning, a farewell. Two lovers say goodbye. An embrace begins to loosen before letting go. Hands that clasped tightly together, slowly slip apart; a space opens between palms, fingers are no longer entwined.

The attraction that once drew us together turns into a force pushing us apart.

Familiarity recedes into mystery and nervous anticipation.

Butterflies settle inside my stomach before flying away. I pace backwards through my flat.

A telephone rings without being picked up.

A silver lining leaves a cloud.

*

Days in the calendar fly backwards with the rustle of fluttering pages. A breeze leaves a room through an open window.

Love letters are taken out of envelopes, unwritten word by word.

Summer turns back to spring; spring goes back to winter. January. December. November.

Flower petals fold themselves tightly into hard, unopened buds; green seedlings shrink back into cold earth. Snow flies upwards into a dark sky. Stars lose their structures and retreat into darkness.

What if I had never met you?

*

On the day we met, the moon hung low in an early morning November sky. A penumbral lunar eclipse was visible before dawn. The Earth’s penumbra is the outer part of its shadow.

In the early weeks of the affair, the moon’s illumination grew brighter with each day. Your head lay on a pillow. I traced the outline of your face, from temple to jawline, as if I was trying to remember your features. I felt a gulp in my throat.

A pink light drifted through the room.

But as time rewound, the moon rose in the west. The lunar phases shifted in reverse. Each cycle began with a full moon that immediately started to wane, quickly losing its brightness. Waves pulled away from a shoreline. Footsteps vanished in the sand; driftwood is carried back to a river. People drown in depths of water that never flowed back to a beach.

Compass needles began to spin in the opposite direction making navigation difficult. Birds were lost in the sky. Shifting magnetic fields changed electric currents.

*

When I loved you in reverse, the first kiss dissolved into moments of lingering closeness, never fulfilled.

The flames of a fire became smaller, dancing down to nothing. Pieces of fresh firewood were taken out of a fireplace, stacked in a pile. A woodchopper put down his ax.

I closed a door you never walked through.

You walked backwards down a street, carrying a black guitar.

Inside a flower shop, you put a bunch of sunflowers inside a bucket.

*

The last days play on repeat in my mind. I keep going back to the night when I lost a part of me. I try to rewind what happened in order to find her – your girlfriend, far-set green eyes, long red hair.

On the last evening, you put a razor blade back on a glass shelf inside the bathroom cabinet, slowly closing the door. A thin line of heroin becomes a small pile on a surface in your apartment. The powder is poured back inside a plastic bag. After closing it with your teeth, you push it back into your front pocket.

You travel backwards from my house.

I unmake dinner.

A peach inside a wooden bowl turns pale and unripe. I carry it to a market where it is placed inside a box and returned to an orchard. Petals flutter upwards from soft dappled shade, gathering into pink and white blossoms.

Leaves from the basil plant are restored to their stems, tomatoes from the garden return to the vine.

I walk backwards through the kitchen.

Everything I cut becomes whole again.

On the last night, you were on edge, I was worried you were high. You had been drinking a lot. I could see it in your eyes, in the sway of your steps, your eyes darting back and forth in the darkness of the garden.

Then a rage took hold of you. You turned into a person I didn’t recognize.

I reverse the flow of time.

A squad car drives backwards down my street.

The pink-petaled heads of the echinacea flowers, that you cut down in fury, rise from the ground, reattaching themselves to the woody stems of the plants growing beside the house.

A scream goes back inside my throat. My mouth closes.

A patio table flies backwards through the air, followed by four chairs, resting in place on the back deck.

The bed is made again. Clothes are lifted from the floor and put on hangers, folded inside drawers. Blankets swirled in anger are neatly folded in a pile.

I reached a surface as if I’d been held underwater, gasping for my breath.

You release your forearm from around my throat.

From the ceiling, I fall into my body lying on a bed.

Harsh words become unsaid thoughts. Spite softens into tenderness.

A bleeding in my eye stops, the whites of my eyes grow brilliant.

A knife is returned to the kitchen drawer.

Shattered fragments of glass fly upwards from the ground into the air, piecing themselves together into pretty blue glass tumblers. The water at the bottom turns cold and forms ice cubes. The glasses are lifted from the table onto a tray.

Liquids pour themselves from glasses back into bottles. You put them on the highest shelf.

I stand on tiptoes to wrap my arms around you.

A love song plays backwards, eerie and unsettling. A moment of crescendo collapses inward.

The journey backwards revealed signs that were invisible.

But still, I can’t find myself.

*

When I become invisible, I stop listening to your heartbeat. I no longer feel the rhythms of your moods and desires. The wild magic ends. Tears roll up my cheeks, back inside the tear ducts, back to the emotion that formed the water in my eyes.

My feet stop standing on tiptoes, heels touch the floor. My arms fall by my sides, no longer wrapped around your neck.

The words “I love you Sarah” go back inside your mouth. I swallow my love for you and pretend it was never there.

*

We were strangers once more. As strangers, we part ways, carrying the love that had already been experienced. We carry the pain of the ending before we meet.

The presents we exchanged returned to their wrappings, the wrapping paper returned to the roll. The thoughts of you vanish from mind. My heart is unbroken. The moon rises in the east. One day follows another. I try to move forwards.

*

In a dream, you hold me. It’s always the same. It’s the part of me who is lost. I wonder whether I can feel complete without her.  She always rushes towards you as if no time had ever passed.

Desire takes its place in the darkness.

You wrap yourself around her inside a darkness outside of time. It’s all that is left when nothing remains.