Can I keep it?

“I want to keep this one"
That was my only clear thought as I lay there. Atleast the only thought I could have voiced, so many other sentiments relegated to abstract and colorful contemplation.
I didn’t know him all that well, I could hardly trace how’d I’ gotten here, lying next to him, with any real clarity.
Lord, I’m such verbal creature. Such a contemplative and analytical thing. I can reason it all out, work on it, stretch and contort into something or anything without even leaving my seat. I am seldom at a loss for words. I can name that emotion in ten words or less, I can define that feeling. I’m ready for any contingency. Verbally, intellectually, so to speak.
And I lay there with just one thought, my eyes tightly shut. And an abstract anxiety that tends to accompany such ungrounded moments of euphoria. I wanted him, and it, and this…the dimensions of the moment to be more than the seconds they were occupying. I wanted more than a memory, and I didn’t know what the fuck to do about it.

I’ve grown used to the temporary nature of things. The tendency life has to give and take and the tempestuous nature of fate in deciding who we get to continue on with, who will live with us solely through memory.
Don’t get me wrong, I have a large series of long-term friendships. It could be said that I am good, even talented, at maintaining intimacy and keeping people in my life. My life is hardly defined by loss. Nonetheless I have gained acceptance, if not grown comfortable, with the awareness that how we keep people has as much to do with sentiment and memory as presence and interaction. Too much is embedded in loss if we don’t accept how much another is embedded in thought and perception.
But, of course, it’s not the same. Memories lay to be twisted and garnished, adorned by wish and fear in their static nature, and as valuable as they are true interaction benefits from the glory of two distinct and animate creatures. And you can’t touch them, can’t grasp them. Can’t ask questions and get a straight answer.
So, though I have learned to deal with change and loss by valuing memory, I understand that such memories are more devisive than educational, as they will always be what you wish them to be.
And, sometimes I find myself suddenly attached to someone or something. And it’s all I can do not to cry aloud “just let me keep it” And I don’t know if that is love, or just life's own longing for itself, in all it's vibrant movement.