stream; three

When it had all finished and everything was closed and there were no words left, the time came when you realised that all this time spent in fear and worry was actually you alive and feeling and real, trying as hard as you could with everything you had, all that you had; and now the warmth in your heart that had encased you for all this time was lifting, the one that you thought would never leave was covered in bittersweet, returning to the place where you existed before all of this and you can’t even remember where it was but it was somewhere, and so all of it was falling out of your fingers and the washing, uncontrolled, around you ached and ached; but it wasn’t out of choice, this throbbing release, it was because the eagerness of it had melted away, and if only for a moment it felt like when the seasons changed this time last year, when the yearning and the hunger and the spark was slow and steady, but now it was different; and at once the fear and the worry was still there but it had changed, of knowing what wasn’t yours anymore and of the idea that used to be there, the one that you thought you finally understood but wasn’t allowed to consume you anymore, no matter how much you wanted it to stay and keep you safe; and now the freeze was real and it was true and it was nothing you’d ever felt before and your head was more clouded than ever, your limbs just longing for it to end but wanting to hold everything and keep time still.