linger
We sit by the crackling fire we’ve built with our own hands. I’ve found a few extra pieces of wood, and chuck them into the flames trying to keep the fire going but it’s the last bits of wood I could find for tonight. I am scared of what will happen when the fire slowly dies down, but for now we’re still kept warm.
We’ve been out here for a substantial amount of time, trying to survive. I remember the day we arrived, just lost for a short moment running wildly through thick brush and branches. We found sticks that resembled a cat and a dog and a sheep, we built them into a small farmhouse and gathered other sticks and leaves for a roof. You made up stories about where they had lived before you saved them, your eyes glittering enthusiastically in the soft rays of sunlight glimmering through the canopy. You named them carefully by personality and grace, and they grew into a vast collection of belongings that wouldn’t be packed.
We drew pictures in the dirt every Sunday as gifts for each other. They were snapshots of what used to be, our lives and tales of people we still hadn’t met. We’d create games to entertain us into the late hours of night; keeping the shadows cast from our silhouettes at bay.
You made drums from a rusty kettle and found some sticks to make a beat, and I whistled into short pieces of grass, we’d make the awkward sounds resemble love songs we’d imagine from the words we had shared. When the moon came out, we danced to the remainder of the melodies making our way down to the lake for a midnight swim. When the sun rised we would lay in the middle of the clearing, laughing at nothing as you held my hand.
We grew used to our surroundings, we built a small treehouse leaning into the lower branches of a large tree and decorated its interior with all our creations We made crayons from coal to make pieces of art on the walls, and we would find plants to braid into rugs and funny-looking curtains We made these woods into our home.
One morning with particularly heavy rain, you asked me if it was time to leave now. I pretended not to hear, I got up and said I’d take our cups down to the lake to fill them like I did every morning. The rain felt like it would pierce my skin as I walked down the path we’d trampled down so many nights and days, and my hands trembled as I pushed the cups down below the surface. When I got back, you sat on your knees by the wall drawing again and we stayed.
Are you leaving in the morning, I say more than I ask. You look at me in silence like you have so many times before; but this time I can hear you. I pick up a stick and poke at the last fews logs, bits of ashes spiraling up into the starlit skies above me. This place is so beautiful, and so lonely. I try to think of something to say, but I can’t. So I put the stick back down, and sit next to you, my head on your shoulder. I’m leaving tonight, you finally say and get up. The last smouldering pieces of the bonfire about to die out, and I let them.
