There was a softness in our unknowing.
“Yes, we can play together.”
And play we did—
running for so long,
together,
but not very far at all.
Passing landmarks,
hand-in-hand,
missing milestones.
The sun goes down eventually.
And in the dark,
we are left there
as we really are:
petrified children.
We embrace, of course,
but we’re not sure how we got here.
We were children about it—
standing very straight in the dark,
both waiting
for the other to run first,
masking bravery
for each other.
So we backtracked,
legs shaking,
crying not from offense,
but from understanding.
The heavy kind.
The solid kind.
The kind that settles quietly between two people
who know there is no monster to outrun,
only the terrible realization
that we had wandered too far.
We did not run.
We walked each other carefully
to the edge of safety.
We faced each other the entire way out,
still hand-in-hand,
until the road forked quietly beneath us,
and loving each other
could no longer keep us walking side by side.
There is innocence in what we had,
and there is also cruelty.
May 7
May 7, 2026 at 3:40 AM UTC
There was a softness in our unknowing.
“Yes, we can play together.”
And play we did—
running for so long,
together,
but not very far at all.
Passing landmarks,
hand-in-hand,
missing milestones.
The sun goes down eventually.
And in the dark,
we are left there
as we really are:
petrified children.
We embrace, of course,
but we’re not sure how we got here.
We were children about it—
standing very straight in the dark,
both waiting
for the other to run first,
masking bravery
for each other.
So we backtracked,
legs shaking,
crying not from offense,
but from understanding.
The heavy kind.
The solid kind.
The kind that settles quietly between two people
who know there is no monster to outrun,
only the terrible realization
that we had wandered too far.
We did not run.
We walked each other carefully
to the edge of safety.
We faced each other the entire way out,
still hand-in-hand,
until the road forked quietly beneath us,
and loving each other
could no longer keep us walking side by side.
There is innocence in what we had,
and there is also cruelty.
