Memory

a fractured glass, light so hard it breaks itself. We carry these shining shards—each word a caress on glass—fingertips trembling at the borders of what we have been: this second without regret; these voices that echo softly because they refuse to break altogether.

If a relationship falls in a forest and the parties involved fail to grieve it together, does it make a sound do the sheets lose the skin's scent do the symbols in each letter stop spelling anything but the composting of promises broken like bread or bones or lines the length of splitting futures trees growing hands out of branches stretching holding so the fallen doesn't make a sound