I have to use words sparingly now. Things used to be different. Before surfaces there was depth. Before identities there was self. Words go into words; wasted breath, white noise, mute hum.

We camped beneath the stars ten billion summers ago, the park down from your house. We fed the horses with grasses we picked, our hands soft with dew and lust.

I miss every inch of your being. I miss your wretched shadow spun lugubrious in Sisyphian recurrence. The slow burn of your love as it fled black char, the whole ******* forest dead.

I’m sick of spitting smoke, but words elude me. I lack the form of your departure. I’ve been trying to flee for years and now it’s happened. I’ll die astride the world immaterial and worthless.

What’s holy is dead. I swallowed it up with the branches that lay beneath you the day we kissed in the forest after school. The last trace of eternity passing into myth.

Eternity passing in a moment.