We spent centuries on that beach.
We were watched by the waves,
as we grew old, and grew attached to one another.
Her hand, caked in soft, brown sand, slipped into my own,
my heart, hopped up to my throat,
like an anxious, busy bunny,
bound to break free,
and make me say the stupidest thing in a second,
if I wasn't careful.
I didn't care if the tide turned towards us,
swallowed us whole,
snickered at our misfortune.
I had decided that death and ridicule were a fair price,
for her hand in mine,
even if it was dirty,
both literally and figuratively.
The sun was setting,
and I begged her to wait,
just a little longer,
just until I had figured out how to let the day last for centuries,
but the sun did not answer to me,
free to live and leave as she pleased.
It wasn't a problem that I could solve, in the moment.
I had to let that day die,
let go of her hand,
make up an excuse for why we'd been gone so long,
take a cold shower when I got home,
text and text until my thumbs were fire,
cry myself to sleep, cowering under the covers.
I buried it, beneath my bones,
carved into my core, where I couldn't see,
so that it would not grow weary,
tarnished by feverish, fiendish overuse.
It burned within me,
begging, as she used to do,
with her eyes like the summer skies,
until I was crumbling,
captured by my craving as the day played, again and again,
until a day became a year,
and a year became a century.
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