It was a hot day when we departed,
A fuming day in the land of Ashes,
Hazy from the smoke of a fire three towns over.
All day felt like sunset.
Beautiful.
Inescapable.
A thick air and a thick knot in my stomach that began to unweave itself as we let go of each other.
Years of twisting and intertwining fibers
wrenching and writhing away from their shared center.

Warm, overwhelming, I'm-going-to-be-sick feeling.

Breathing deep lungfuls of haze and hot air.
Filling up the painful places in my body.
Exhaling all the life you breathed into me over so long.
Nothing to do but embrace a slow and sweetly inevitable
death and rebirth process.
My god it hurts.
Nothing to be done besides hurt.
Cry a little. Just to cool down my flustered cheeks.
Nothing to be done besides
feel the emptiness that has formed between us,
and gaze into the abyss beneath the burning bridge.
Feel the knots unformed in the safety rope round our waists.
Orbiting without a tether.
Lovely little dreams of freedom.
Infinite frictionless momentum.
Eventually.

I'd like to enjoy the feeling of freedom.
Of release.
Of forgiveness.
But death is always painful, even as it frees us from suffering.