Touched

I turned to her in that last hour and thought what we had cultivated. Slender stalks soon to be crushed under the winter's weight. Because the cold always comes now matter how warm it's been.

It seemed the time to run after, but I didn't move. Tucked neatly into the folds of solitude it seems life is only a burden. Some rare flower hidden away on a mountain's edge. Blooming where no one can see it. What for? Why if?

Do you live simply because you can? Do you want these scents, these confections of the world? Or are you just there because that is where you've always have been?

I touched her once with words so pale that she saw right through them. As if in that hollow she saw herself and we both longed to know that anyone else could be so shattered. To discover at last if it was only ourselves whose pieces no longer fit.

And the more we push them back together the further they splinter.

I wanted to be, but it was long too late. Too many sad songs. Too much faith in them.

She couldn't wait. And I knew why. Because there's no recovery. Only limping onward without those crutches, though still your legs haven't healed.

She stumbled and I wanted to catch her, but she was out of my reach.

I may have touched her. I know that she touched me. Even without the benefit of flesh it was still quite real.