and Then

The days pass with nothing to say. Nothing of torrential downpours and passing deadlines, nothing of street corner kisses and the dull ache in my shoulder that says life is passing by quickly and I'd do well to sit still for a minute and see it. She calls to say he's taken the kids, she calls to say her life is falling apart, again, again, how you wish you could save her against the world. When you were young she told you the bad things happening then were just God preparing her for so much worse to come, and some days you think her premonition strangely prescient, long after that God had forsaken her.

A sun begins its slow climb in the east. You set your alarms, too early, too cruel, but summer rolls into its dying breaths, you want to greet each one and watch it escape between your lips. You are still here, it whispers, you are still here. You are never late to a party you've arrived at.