I don't have a concept of time
She
remembered.
├──
the morning
├──
coffee still warm in her hands,
└──
steam rising
├──
like small prayers into the kitchen light
└──
each wisp a
moment
├──
of absolute presence
├──
where time seemed to pause
└──
and she could feel
everything
├──
the weight of being
├──
the lightness of becoming
└──
the way love exists in the space between breaths
├──
when he said
those words
├──
that weren't "I love you" but meant the same:
└──
"Stay,"
├──
he'd whispered
└──
though what he meant was
"exist here with me
├──
in this imperfect moment
├──
where the dishes need washing
├──
and the cat is crying for food
└──
where we are
human
together"
├──
and flawed and trying
├──
always trying
└──
to build something that outlasts
the forgetting
├──
that comes for all of us, eventually
├──
like snow covering footprints
└──
like silence after the last word
└──
as if that single syllable could
hold them
└──
against the current of time that
carries everything away
├──
memories, moments
├──
the way light fell across the table that morning
└──
how his hand
trembled
├──
slightly, imperceptibly to anyone but her
└──
who had learned to read the language of his
silences
└──
the way archaeologists read ruins: carefully, with reverence for what remains and grief for what is lost