Before you grow old and die

The time was right to leave but I had no place to go. I went to the beach to watch the water. The ocean sang to me the way it always does and I don’t remember any of the words. The blue wind was midnight and noon and the heavy clouds stole my grey thoughts. I reached through my thoughts for you, but I had trouble moving my cold fingers. A distinct lack of sensation unlike the ambiguous numbness in my chest. I couldn’t understand why I had lost your face. I tried to be less ambitious: I started with the contours of your nose, I spread my mind to your cheekbones and jaw, but it all mixed and swirled until I couldn’t even recognize my own imagination.

I knew you were more than a face, so I thought of downtown lights and holidays and dancing but it was all sad piano and restless sleep. In the height of my thoughts the waves crashed and demanded to be heard. I left my brain and listened to the tide until it calmed. Above the sea the tension dispersed the way our warmth softly died, like a star without planets or purpose. Evening came so I let my thoughts drift away and sink quietly into the air around me.

The idea is hard to put into words. All the time I spent preparing to lose you, and you slipped through the cracks in my brain before we met.