A Reason

When we walked home up the long hill, the city glittering at our feet, the waters dark and inviting, I saw at the edge of the horizon an orange light, streaming into the clouds: dawn. We laughed and hurried on tired legs; we slept the second our heads hit the pillow. How simple the pleasure of friendship; how impossible it seems that she was not always here, once she is. The tequila buzzed in my head come morning. The apartment seemed emptier, again.

Time overwhelms me. Age, the added years, the growing to-do list that never seems to get checked off enough. The pleasant smiles around me have discovered the secret: resign, accept, move on.

But now is not yet the time to accept. Now is the time to laugh and hurry, to greet the sunrise. Now is the time to have something to prove, and to prove it. You may not believe it now; I do not blame you.

I don't believe it myself, until I see it.