Elsewhere

by Alexis Schaitkin

I felt the full weight of our affliction: the peril of immense loss and the power of immense love, the two forces impossible to disentangle, for they were one and the same.

What bound us was also the reason our bond proved too frail to endure; it was the lesson our lives had taught us, one we had learned too well: You do not get to keep what is sweetest to you; you only get to remember it from the vantage point of having lost it.