Solemn Solace

Sometimes you have to accept the timeline and just be okay with the way things are. How you got here. How we got here. And where we go from here.

She said it with an unrequited coldness, her voice confident but unsure, unrelenting in her quest to convince herself. I could sense her change in temperament from who we used to be to who we are now. I could feel the temperature drop.

Outside, the air was still and quiet, eerie like the calm before a northeastern storm. It was a grey winter day, the kind where I put my faith in the sun, the kind where I knew if I could see a hint of brightness in the lightly dimmed sky, I could be happy. Faith and hope are not the same. One does not follow the other, and one like the state of leaves on trees in cold degrees remained.

Inside, she sat coolly across from me, half upright, half laidback, on the dark shaded, maroon tinted couch we shared for years as young lovers who didn’t yet know ourselves individually but loved ourselves collectively, and then for more years while we became who we are and while we grew apart. I saw her mind was made-up and she had resigned herself – ourselves – to this fate. It was the logical choice, but it was also rational to want to fight it. In the end, I decided it was not worth it: although she was having difficulty convincing herself it was over, I shared the same difficulty in convincing myself it wasn’t. Just one more thing we shared.

***The above is a snippet to revisit, to become part of a larger piece***

Those words reverberated through the room, through my head to spark dread for ages of all the things that couldn’t be said.

Sometimes you have to accept the timeline and just be okay with the way things are. How you got here. How we got here. And where we go from here.

Those words reverberated through the tomb, through my bed to dark threads, in ages soon enough we’ll all be dead.