Winsome

Winsome. That’s the word I would have used.

We met by chance, became friends by intention. She had this way of biting her lip when she was concentrating, in no way intending to be sexual, which by its very nature made it enticing.

She had this way of seeing the world. This wonder at the small things. Sunsets. Hailstones. Architecture. Coffee. Everything was a wonder to behold, surveyed with a childlike innocence at the beauty which exists in life.

She moved her lips when she read in silence, following the words without a sound. She would become engrossed, lost in a world far away where I could never reach, and I got joy just from watching her glee.

Her music was her life; it ran in her blood, was permanently attached to her. She would vanish into a beat, a melody, a lyric. She found music in the rain, in the wind in the trees, in commuters complaining on a train.

Winsome. Everything about her was radiant joy.

And even when she was gone, that laugh stayed behind. Like the smell of a bonfire on a breeze. Like the glistening of a wet ground after a rainstorm. Like an echo of something loved so long ago. A childlike laugh, hanging on the breeze. That and the sweet scent of cinnamon all that remained.

Winsome. And, like a wild bird in a gilded cage, never mine to keep.

This post is a response to the Daily Post prompt: Winsome