what is it they say?
life changes in the blink of an eye
in a heartbeat
on the turn of a dime
and it does
time marked in moments
in hours
or in moons
we though are measured in solar cycles
earth around the sun
the way I orbited you
our beginning and ending
like the birth and collapse 
of a star

 

in the space of our first year
i can’t remember
a time when I didn’t love you
we stare into the eclipse
despite warnings well-meaning
and let the flare
burn reason away

 

in the space of a year 
we make a home
literal foundations laid
with our bare hands
neither of us knowing
how deep the cracks run
in the space of a year
we dance under a moon
and howl like wolves
our laughter drowning out
the alarm bells
that ring as we cling
together
we rejoice as we dive
the depths of the sea
and of each other
unaware just how close

we are to drowning

 

in the space of a year 
we make paper flowers
and promises
you tell me I saved you
you found me, I say
blind optimism, blind faith
perhaps just blind
because in the same year
you tell me you want to die
every day a chain around you
with me the weight
and I forgive you again
I do, I do, I do

 

in the space of a year
and a year, and a year
we tread the line
between the everyday
and the glimmer
of dreams
we tell our stories
narrating who we are
who we want to be
we build us
page by page
let’s not call it fiction
but make believe made real
although reality’s teeth are sharper
than we imagine

 

in the space of a year
we are caught in the tumble
of weeks and months
that go by uncounted
unremarkable
but for the way I love you
and you love me
we bask in the sun
and tread water
and breathe
our sights set on a shore
that never seems
to draw closer
you slip under
I hold you up
barely above the surface myself
we are but a life raft
as the sharks circle
blood in the water
with neither of us
admitting our wounds

 

in the space of our final year
we claim we are strong
unconquerable
we should have known
that was a lie
maybe we shouldn’t have
taunted the universe

with such a challenge
it rises
to meet us
with fatal ferocity
our traumas painting us into
different people
grabbing us with greedy fingers
and pulling us
in different directions
until we lose our grip on each other
and ourselves and falter 
we are done for
and those early days apart
each feel like a year in itself
slow and painful
like shedding a skin that’s not ready 
and we are left
raw and weeping 
underneath
with recriminations and regret

 

in the space of a year
you are gone from me
and I miss you
like a limb

like air
lungs gasping around
a bleeding heart
I wonder if you miss me
but already
you breathe someone else
so I drift
anchorless
and watch you sail new seas
without me

 

in the space of a year
we somehow survive
as new people
we offer up forgiveness 
as a panacea
but the eggshells we tread
are fragile  
and not strong enough to hold us
we are as foreign to each other
now as strangers
unfathomable
our separate lives and smiles a mask
one forced step
then another
as grief lingers underfoot
but still onward we march
and we work and we drink and we laugh
and we cry
and we try

to stare fixedly ahead
because everybody says
there’s no going back

 

today is one year
since our star collapsed
in on itself
I am somehow still standing
and so are you
beaten and bruised
in the wake of gravity
when the thought of surviving
even one day apart
once seemed impossible
but here we are, my love
still living
we are still living
and so I wonder 
no, I fear
as the years ahead
carry us with the wind
and time does its work
one day
in the space of I don’t know
how many years
you will become nobody to me
and I will barely remember
your name

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