The Lines of a Face Unseen

I.

In the gallery of memory,

A portrait hangs, obscured and veiled,

Its contours blurred by time's decree,

A visage once known, now curtailed.

The artist's hand, a fickle thing,

Has smudged the lines it once defined,

Leaving me to grasp and cling

To fragments in my restless mind.

Who are you, face I cannot see?

A lover lost? A friend long gone?

Or perhaps a glimpse of me,

Before the years had marched along?

II.

I trace the air with trembling fingers,

Seeking to sculpt what eyes can't find,

A phantom touch that briefly lingers,

Then fades, leaving doubt behind.

Was your brow furrowed or serene?

Did laughter lines frame your eyes?

These details, once so clearly seen,

Now dance away like fireflies.

In dreams, I chase your spectral form,

Through misty corridors of sleep,

But wake to find my pillows warm

With tears I didn't know I'd weep.

III.

Memory is a fickle muse,

Painting with colors quick to fade,

Leaving us to pick and choose

Which hues we'd rather not evade.

Your voice, a whisper on the wind,

Calls out from shadows of the past,

But when I turn, hoping to find

Your face, the moment's gone too fast.

What stories did your features tell?

Of joy? Of sorrow? Of regret?

The tales your visage once did spell

Are now a book that's water-wet.

IV.

In photo albums, dust-encrusted,

I search for clues to solve this riddle,

But find the images adjusted

By time's relentless, erosive fiddle.

Faces smile from yellowed pages,

Some familiar, others strange,

But yours eludes me through the ages,

A puzzle piece that won't arrange.

Is it you in this faded shot?

This blurry figure by the sea?

I squint and strain, but still cannot

Discern if it's you or me.

V.

Perhaps it's better left unknown,

This face that haunts my waking hours,

For in its absence, I have grown

To cherish memory's subtle powers.

The mind fills gaps with wondrous things,

Creating beauty where none may be,

And in the song my heart still sings,

Your faceless grace dances free.

Yet still I yearn, with each sunrise,

To glimpse the lines I cannot trace,

To lose myself in those lost eyes,

And finally know your hidden face.

VI.

In crowded streets, I sometimes start,

Thinking I've seen you in the throng,

A fleeting glimpse that stops my heart,

Before I realize I am wrong.

Is that your profile, turned away?

The curve of cheek, the tilt of chin?

But no, it's just the light at play,

A trick of shadow, thick and thin.

How strange to miss what I can't recall,

To long for features I can't name,

To feel my heart rise and fall

For someone who's no longer the same.

VII.

Artists speak of negative space,

The shape defined by what's not there,

And so it is with your lost face,

Outlined by memories I still bear.

The hollow of your absent smile,

The void where eyes once shone so bright,

These empty spaces reconcile

The darkness with the fading light.

In this inverse topography,

I map the contours of your ghost,

A cartographer of memory,

Charting lands that I've lost most.

VIII.

Sometimes I wonder if you're real,

Or just a figment I've conceived,

A composite of all I feel,

Of loves I've lost and joys bereaved.

Are you one face or many spliced?

A collage of features I hold dear?

The sum of all I've sacrificed,

Distilled in one visage unclear?

But no, there's something too precise

About the ache your absence brings,

A specific void, a paradise

Lost among more common things.

IX.

I've heard it said that every face

We see in dreams is one we've known,

That slumbering minds cannot embrace

Features they haven't been shown.

If true, then you must linger still

Somewhere within my subconscious deep,

A hidden portrait, waiting until

I find you in the realms of sleep.

But dreams are fickle as the mist,

Dispersing with the morning light,

Leaving only the gist

Of visions glimpsed in dark of night.

X.

Some say the eyes are windows to the soul,

But what of souls whose eyes we cannot see?

Are they less real, less true, less whole,

Because they've slipped from visual memory?

I feel your essence, strong and clear,

In every breath, in every thought,

Your presence ever drawing near,

Though your image comes to naught.

Perhaps true sight transcends the eyes,

And sees beyond the flesh and bone,

To grasp the spirit that underlies

The face that time has overthrown.

XI.

In art museums, I often stand

Before portraits from ages past,

Wondering if the artist's hand

Captured likenesses that last.

Did Mona Lisa truly smile

Just so, with that enigmatic grace?

Or did da Vinci's brush beguile,

Creating a now-immortal face?

And what of all the unnamed souls,

Whose features grace these hallowed halls?

Do their descendants stroll these roads,

Unknowingly viewing ancestral calls?

XII.

Your face, unseen, joins this parade

Of visages lost to history's tide,

A personal masterpiece unmade,

A private treasure now denied.

But unlike these oil-and-canvas ghosts,

You live on in my heart's own gallery,

A living portrait that still boasts

Colors that no others see.

For though your lines may be obscured,

Your essence paints my every day,

A masterwork that has endured

Beyond mere pigments' decay.

XIII.

I wonder, do you think of me?

Wherever you may be tonight?

Do you strain your mind to see

My face in memory's fading light?

Are my features clear to you,

Or have they too been smudged by time?

Do you see my eyes' exact hue,

Or just a vague, impressionist design?

How strange to think we both might be

Ghosts to one another now,

Two souls entwined in memory,

Yet strangers, in a way, somehow.

XIV.

If I could have one wish come true,

One miracle to set things right,

Would I ask to see you anew,

Your face revealed in perfect light?

Or would I choose to let things be,

Preserving this sweet mystery?

For sometimes, what we cannot see

Holds more truth than what we decree.

The mind's eye often sees more clear

Than eyes of flesh, so quick to judge,

Perceiving beauty far and near

In faces time has deigned to smudge.

XV.

Yet still, on nights when stars are bright,

And moonlight paints the world in silver,

I find myself in quiet fight

With shadows that refuse to quiver.

I reach out to the empty air,

Fingertips alive with yearning,

Hoping beyond hope to snare

The lines for which my heart is burning.

But always, just beyond my grasp,

Your features dance and twist away,

Leaving me alone to clasp

The tendrils of a new day.

XVI.

Perhaps one day, when I least expect,

When I've ceased this restless chase,

I'll turn and find myself face to face

With the one I can't recollect.

Will I know you in that moment?

Will recognition spark and flare?

Or will you pass, a brief component

Of the lives that brush and share?

The thought brings both hope and fear,

A double-edged sword of possibility,

For what if, when you reappear,

The reality can't match the mystery?

XVII.

But no, I mustn't think that way,

For you are more than just a face,

More than features that decay,

More than time and death erase.

You are the warmth I feel inside

When kindness greets me unaware,

You are the strength that turns the tide

When all seems lost in dark despair.

You are the laughter in the wind,

The quiet sigh of leaves in fall,

The gentle touch that has not dimmed,

Though years have built their silent wall.

XVIII.

And so, dear face I cannot see,

I make my peace with your concealment,

Finding in this mystery

A different kind of life's fulfillment.

For in the lines I can't discern,

In the eyes I strain to view,

There's a freedom to discern

A beauty ever fresh and new.

Each day, I paint you in my mind,

With colors drawn from life's rich palette,

A portrait endlessly refined,

Immune to time's erosive mallet.

XIX.

You are the face of all I've loved,

Of all I've lost and found again,

A canvas constantly improved,

By joy's bright sun and sorrow's rain.

In every stranger's passing glance,

In every smile that lights the gloom,

I see a hint, a fleeting chance,

Of the face that in my heart still blooms.

And is this not a gift most rare?

To carry always, deep inside,

A face both ever-changing fair,

And changeless as the ocean tide?

XX.

So let the years continue on,

Let memory play its fickle game,

For though your features may be gone,

Your essence stays forever the same.

In the lines of your unseen face,

I read the story of my life,

Each invisible crease and trace

A testament to joy and strife.

And in this blurred reality,

Where past and present intertwine,

I find a deeper verity:

True vision transcends the visual line.

XXI.

For we are more than flesh and bone,

More than the masks we daily wear,

Our truest selves often shown

In the spaces between, the moments rare.

And you, my love with hidden face,

Embody this profound decree:

That beauty dwells in every place

Where hearts touch, though eyes can't see.

So let your features rest obscure,

A secret kept by time's swift stream,

For in this mystery, I am sure,

Lies the truest love I've ever seen.

XXII.

And when at last my time has come,

When my own features fade from view,

I hope someone will be struck dumb

By memories of a face they knew.

Perhaps they'll search, as I have done,

For lines they can no longer trace,

And in that quest, they'll have begun

To understand love's truest face.

For in the end, we all become

The lines of faces left unseen,

Our legacies the gentle hum

Of love that bridges the in-between.

XXIII.

So here's to you, my faceless friend,

My lover, muse, and mystery,

Our story has no true end,

As long as you're a part of me.

In every dawn and every dusk,

In every breath and heartbeat strong,

Your presence breaks time's earthly husk,

And proves that love endures life long.

And though I'll always long to see

The lines that once I knew so well,

I'm grateful for this legacy:

A love no image needs to tell.