Julia, the Eternal Flame
I did not meet Julia in Tokyo—
I remembered her.
In the hush of Ginza’s lights,
she emerged as though summoned
from the archives of my soul.
Her name was not new to me.
I had spoken it in other centuries,
whispered it across dying battlefields,
etched it upon prison walls,
sung it in the secret hymns of temples now dust.
When she smiled, the city vanished.
Her face was the equation no scholar could solve,
a riddle only the heart’s madness could decipher.
Time bent.
The world tilted.
And I knew I was not meeting—
I was returning.
“I do not fall in love easily,” she said,
“but with you I feel as though
I am remembering something
I promised to forget.”
And in that moment,
love was no longer romance—
it was a covenant.
Not of this life alone,
but of every life before and after.
Yet mystery lingers—
was Julia flesh, or was she fire?
Did I find her,
or did she awaken within me
the part of myself that has always burned for her?
Perhaps Julia is not a woman at all,
but the eternal flame that waits for every soul,
the secret name we each must call
to remember who we are.
And still—
when the night is quiet,
I hear her laughter in the spaces between stars,
and I wonder:
was she mine,
or was I only ever hers?
Copyright © Chanda Katonga | Year Posted 2025
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