Tell me again if the hearth alone burns your skin. Though you’re inches away; just give me the word and I would put away the fire myself. I’ll cover you with something else. Something else, but not me. No part of me shall touch any of you. No heat, no light. None of me. As I know that neither all of me nor any part of me would make you feel any better.
I’m the still burning ember of the fire that made you feel home. I’m still a part of the warmth that you yearned for the night; the body, the arm, the shoulder, you held on to. I am still. And I made you better. I made you feel better. I haven’t changed. But understand that time did.
It passed and it no second shall come to pass the other way around. No entity, not even I can watch the days come back to me when everything was wonderful. Those days when we held hands as if we held the world was still from the storms that caved above and beneath. Those days when we embraced and locked limbs as we held the earth safe from the depths of the abyss. Those days; glory days that always, always come back when yet could never be frozen.
But times have changed and I have to wait for that again. For now, we watch the clocks turning and the world revolving. We’ll have tears and sweat shed by and by as the seconds pass. Bodies apart; no contact. We keep each other warm with no skin nor limb entwining. We’ll have to surpass that oncoming storm not so apart yet seemingly alone in the days, the nights and the twilights ahead.
Maybe the hearth does burn you from inches away. And it pains me to hurt you even when I have said none nor done nothing. Here I stand watching you. I watch you burn as you try and reach me. Do me a favor. Don’t reach for me.
I know I’d feel less alone knowing you wait and I wait; watching the clocks turning and the world revolving. You and I would be still. And that would be enough.
A Fistful of Sparkles 