If I loved a little harder.

There you are, on the sand. I was looking for you. You're taking in the night, the salt, the wind, the rustling of the leaves on the trees... And it hits you, like when the salt gets too strong and it flares up your nose... this is it. There's no other go around. There's no second chance. This is a moment you'll never get back, and yet you wish it away, putting this moment in a bottle for a seagull to put in his mouth and take it anywhere but here. To a much sunnier place, you hope. Maybe he'll make good use of it. But it's yours. But it marches. He'd never use it for anything and it's dripping off the cap as he flies it away. You're left behind in the past, and now you're in a moment that hurts (you get antsy to touch a wound) and you brought it all here to this moment and the tears are filling up your eyes and I'm antsy to wipe them away. But I know better. This is yours.

Every time you bring something back from that old time it gets a little more distorted until you're telling yourself something you don't even know but you bring yourself to for comfort. Guess we like the familiar, even when it's bad for us. It's all we know, and we don't want to know any more. Guess for you, you're tired. Or maybe you're scared. We're just balls of worry.

And you get a little more distorted too and I feel like I don't know you anymore. But I do.

Gosh. Here you are, in this moment, and I'm standing like a palm tree and your shoulders are slumped and I don't know what to do and you don't either. It doesn't seem like I'm here, I guess. I want to be, but all you care for right now is a moment of you, in-between the grim reaper and God, right below the moon, and I understand that. I swear, the ocean is ice. Snow is falling and it's June and I can see you shiver. All I know is that your chest has been heaving for too long. But I'm here, and I'll sit. I won't be much help, but I'll take this moment and let the salt hit me too.

Time right now is unbroken, a long stretch where human division and seconds disappear, and we sit like cavemen. I know it still marches, but let me have this. It taunts me, but I could give less of a fuck when I could skate over the fish. Uncaring, brutal, gentle, finite in a human way. It ticks, and this pocket is gone too. One day you wish for more of it (or at least, you hope you do) when once you were wishing it away. You swear you won't miss it but tomorrow comes and your hands start to shake and you get worry lines. The night is tough and hard on the knees and the fish are dead. I guess that makes it complicated. But this is it. It's a long night and a short life.

I lie down, and you join me. We skate on the ice.

And it snows in June.