leaving, leaving, everyone's leaving.

last summer, just around the time that everything spun out like whoa.

everyone leaves. no one stays. not you, nor i. nobody. even shakespeare one day, will be forgotten; a shadow of someone passed, memories before memories before memories ago. people won't even ask who was that guy who wrote those famous stories? people won't even ask.

but no matter. it makes no difference that few will ask about you long after you're gone. it makes no difference because you still want to pretend like they will. like your life was not merely a floaty cloud--a caricature of something picture-perfect, or banal enough to forget--but rather a storm that went down in the record books. a force that changed everything, left no house or body untouched. they will call you Storm Rachael. you will become a proper noun.

and still. the people in the houses will pass. the houses will pass, too, eventually. and no one will care that you tattered their rooftops. not eternally. not really. you'll go, too, and then even you won't care that you've been forgotten.

but now, you are here. people are coming and going. waking and dying. being born and falling fast asleep. you will fall in love with one of those people. she will leave. you will fall in love again. he will leave, too. you will fall in love evermore, and you will do the leaving sometimes. you will watch out of the corner of your eye as he watches you drive and drive until you're out of his sight, and he a small dot in the distance of your mind. you will wish that your mind made all the decisions about your feelings. you will ask your heart, why?

you will not have answers. you will fight like a stray cat in the arms of some huge loving force, you will fight and fidget your way out. you will escape back into the alley where silver soaked cement shows you what you're made of: a tired survival that wants to be free. you will wish it could be easier. but you will pay the price it costs to be yourself, independent and alone. there will be friends, even here, even here.

and one day, you may find yourself knowing that the towel that wants to wrap you in warmth and love, bring you in from the streets of solitude, does not intend to strangle your spirit or splinter your heart, but simply warm your soul as you prepare your final going.

so you will let it. you will let yourself be held, even though everything is ending. you will open your heart to a radiating hum. you will swallow the song into your body. it will nurse you like an ancient lullaby. you will sleep soundly with a small smile on your face. you will be sad and also happy. sad you went so long not letting yourself feel love. sad about time, that there is never enough. happy that there is this, now.

and when you wake, only to leave, he will nod as you say thank you. he will know that you really meant it. because he is leaving, too. we are leaving each other. we are leaving each other, only after we have found each other. and to find anything at all always comes with the real-life risk of losing. we will feel the loss, but also the real-life blessing.

and i'm not sure what happens next.