Member-only story
lifetime Once
Prose
Considered lifetime is not justice. It takes more of them to encircle the self settling into acceptance. Feelings running rapids down existence, barnacles mold the underbelly until pace reflects the ages. Breaking fell, the fall of it, turns tides into choices, seas into dreams, the sky — one vast playground — the sounding.
But that’s for one, what if there were two — a relationship on the go? Where do the answers lie, one assimilates for the other? Articulate connections and spot-on foggy-love builds the boat that weather’s the storms. Their breath fills the sails, their muscles row. They do one with the other. Are we built that way or is it something learned? Tales of love: discarded, destroyed, shunned, left unsaid tells us nothing, only the next beat for the other is hope.
Miles to go down this show. What I signed up for off the cliff: an illusional hand to hold, a shoulder to lean into; eyes the color of forever. Hair the wash of essence. I stop in the middle of the road and look at distance skipping and jump and wonder will I ever get there. Everything is here, the me around me. Turned to the sky, my scream cracks the boundaries.
The world starts to leak.
Michael Stang 2021
