Some say it’s tin. Some, diamond. Shiny, they say. Something to add a glint of light to the years. Something to shake off the dust that’s accumulated. But what if the only option is a star? The stuff of which we both are made. The stuff that one day will come back and be what someone else holds onto when they need a warm hand on their back or fingers through their hair. I’ll take the star. What if it’s not what we thought it would ever be? What if it’s not champagne and that black see-through dress of my dreams but the jeans I’ve been wearing for days and the bottle of water I’ve been ignoring? It’s not the beautiful desert landscape and those grainy photos we would show our children, but a room with four walls and cluttered with nostalgia. It’s not lying down looking into your eyes and seeing my heart, but staring at a ceiling and seeing my emptiness reflected back. It’s forever and it feels longer than I can bear. It’s forever, but not the forever we talked about. Not the forever I want. The words I would have shared would be about this third energy that buzzed between two, which now lives in just one. Look at what we did. Look at what we made. Look at what life handed us. So I ask you to look. I ask you to hold me the only way you can. I vow to keep you the same. For however many more ten years I get. For however many more lifetimes we get. It’s you and me.
