Train Tracks

He said no, she says, and the silence that follows is deafening. She shatters in a million pieces, spills her every last confidence into the emptiness that remains. The thing about grand romantic gestures is sometimes they’re too late, the thing about our demons is usually they’re willing to wait however long it takes for us to find them again, for us to make room and let them devour us whole. You meet her on the corner of a neighborhood you once owned, streets you once knew blindfolded. The same tram still runs west, straight to the ocean, you watch familiar turns from its window as she speaks of the fallout. He’ll live in the apartment, so as least we don’t have to deal with dividing that up yet.

When you reach the cliffs, the winds whip the waves into a furor, but the rocks are warm with sunshine. You dive in without a second thought, quickly carried away by the current and both laughing. In the sea there is no failed past or fumbled future. In the sea there is nothing but keeping your head above water. You come up panting, but you come up alive.

That’ll do.