this feels brighter
as if the light
has remembered
how to touch skin

the colors of our childhood have come back
crayon blue skies
the chirping
the colors of the flowers
and the smell
oh the smell

not exactly as they were
everything feels like return
but not quite return

and still, underneath it all
a strange quiet
not absence
as if we’ve died so many little deaths
the body has stopped keeping count

this ending feels like
a well-rehearsed ritual
the last page of a book
we wrote in pencil
softly erasing itself
while we smile and say,
yes
this is how it always was
and was always going to be

what a gentle way to disappear
by becoming more visible
by returning, not to youth
but to the myth of it
and letting it wash over us
one final time

like a sky too blue
to believe in
but still, we look up