Elegy for the Future I Remembered

I carried a picture of the future
folded carefully,
creased from hope,
soft at the edges from being touched too often.

It was simple.
Light-filled.
Unburdened.

It had room to breathe.

I thought love would arrive
and set things down—
the weight,
the vigilance,
the quiet readiness for loss.

But love arrived carrying its own weather.

Now the days beat softly—
thump,
thump—
like a heart learning restraint.

I measure time in pauses.
In what isn’t said.
In glances that linger
then drift away.

I grieve a life
that never broke,
never failed—
only slowly receded
like a shoreline pulled farther back each year.

There was a future
where I rested.
Where care was mutual,
where holding hands didn’t feel like holding breath.

I still see her sometimes—
that version of me—
walking freely into mornings
that do not ask so much.

(thump)

(th—ump)

The rhythm stretches now.
Longer between beats.
Love still here,
but quieter,
more careful,
as if afraid to wake what’s already tired.

I will stay.
I will love.

But I mourn the dream
that taught me how to hope—
the one that believed
someday
the guarding would end. And even as I stand in what is,
I carry what was meant to be
like a song I still know by heart,
even as it fades.