In The Wind We Walk Slower

"I wish I could hire you to write something else." He hands me the check, and closes the folder.

"You can. What else do you need written?" I put the check in my front pocket next to my lip gloss. These were only some marketing letters. These were fairly simple and straight forward.

He shakes his head. "No, not like a job. I mean, I wish I could hire you to write for me. To put my thoughts into Words."

I'm listening. Patiently. "Sometimes I can do that." I coax him in the quiet. I wait. I hear him.


He sits back in the chair behind the desk. "I don't even know how to begin. I mean, I just wish you could put Words in my mouth. I just can't talk to her anymore. We still talk, but only about everyday things. We have secrets from each other now. It's hard to explain."

There's the picture of us, in the light with which we see.
And then there's the moments we give to the darkness.
We have to be clear with ourselves.

"I wasn't a great partner. I know that much. But I wasn't so bad."

I didn't always know what to do. But I almost always knew what not to do. And that alone would be sustaining. But not enough so. Not enough.

"At one time we were so close. Like it built up to something between us. But we couldn't hang on to it."

We experience the growing, and the changing. And the burning. And the simmer.

"We just go through the motions now. We just deal with it."

Because this is us, the shadow we cast, the image we are. Again and again, reflected through the windows and the bravery.

"I know we both feel it. It's like we're about to break up, any day. But neither of us wants to.

In the wind we walk slower. When everything is moving around us, we resist, and we move slower.

"I know it will come, and I know the parts I will miss.

I will miss your dignity. Those moments where you stood tall, with class and grace. I will cherish those with longing.

"It's not like there's anything I can say now that will change any thing."

We go so far. And then, we don't go back.

"There was a time, when we would lay in bed for hours without talking. And now I don't know what to say."



And it was in the silence that we said the most.


.