In the emptiness of this moment,
I am witness to an avalanche.
My world, once solid
Is now water running through
My desperate fingers.

They say time stops in freefall,
but this isn't stopping;
This is stretching,
Like toffee pulled to its limits
Until the strands give and snap.

I stand so very still,
Like a statue carved
From all of this numbness,
Watching pieces of myself
Scatter like startled pigeons.

The sound.
Oh, the sound.
It is not in the breaking of,
But in its absence;
With so many conversations
That we'll never start or finish.

As empty rooms
Greet me with silence,
And dust motes float
Through spaces where
Our dreams once lived.

And all the while,
This acceptance
wraps around me like smoke,
And I know.
Oh, how I know,
That this is how change begins.

Not with wings,
But with the death
Of everything
That was once
So familiar.

©️Lizzie Bevis