It Lasts Forever and Then It's Over

by Anne de Marcken

Because we are so small together in the vast expanse, so small together in the lee of the dune, beneath the sky, within the sound of the ocean and the warmth of the sun, we are more together than we have ever been or ever will be again.

It was the end. But we did not know it then. You do not know the end has happened until later. Or you do not admit it. Looking back, you can see it. And you realize that all the time after that was just an effort to keep going as if it weren’t already over.

I close my eyes and try to breathe but the end of the world is in my throat. The summer before the last summer. You are saying something about your brother or mine. I can hear you clearly but it is also as if you are far away. It is unbearable to look back from the future we did not know we had been traveling toward. That is not right. It is unbearable because we did know. It was plain as our own palms.

I pretended everything would be okay because it seemed impossible to always be saying goodbye.