I wish I could take the hands of time and turn them in reverse
I'd take back every long goodbye with venom in my words
He is good to his word: he stays.
But when she wakes the next morning—when her sage green eyes flutter—he is gone. It is like a punch to the gut and she feels dizzy with the disappointment, with the regret, with the pained way that her heart threatens to punch clean through her chest. She stays there for a while. For too long. Until the sun has crested and the bite of autumn cuts clean through her teeth; until she can nearly forget the feel of him.
She wonders if she had made him up, if she had some how dreamt of the evening before. She wonders if she had someone carved the granite of his jawline from the ache in her heart and if she had imagined the way that he had asked her to stay, the way that he had held her like it matter, the way he softened.
But the longer she wonders, the more it hurts.
The more she feels the vicious loss of him as a tangible thing.
Finally, she does the only thing she knows how: she builds a wall around her agony. She lifts herself up from the cold ground and shakes the leaves from her mane. She goes on living because it’s the only thing.
And, like that, the days pass.
If the colors seem duller, the sounds more muted, she does her best to not notice. If she feels more edge, her anger more ready to rise to the occasion, she chalks it up to the changing of seasons. It is only at night when she lets the memory of him slink past her defenses. It is only when sleep is just around the corner that she remembers the feel of his head pressed against her neck, his teeth on her hip—only then.
So when she sees that flash of him through the trees, she thinks that maybe she has lost her mind.
She thinks maybe she has finally lost control.
Except the shape of him is in such stark clarity that she never could have dreamt it. She feels the air leave her lungs like a physical impact and her head swims but the only thing she does is take a step forward and then come up short. Her eyes become guarded and her chin lifts in an instant defense against the pain.
She chokes down his name; stops herself from calling it out.
She feels the earth spin under her and she just waits for him to pass.
the only way to being found is getting lost at first
but all I find are more bridges to burn