Fleeting

Hold me now, for a while. These first few moments, just after, are the living by which we measure the rest of our lives. We both know it won’t last. I’m more delicate than I look, and you’re crueler than you pretend to be. We’re each too damaged to make a working pair; a torn kite kept aloft only as long as the winds remain savage.

Sure, we’ll try. Honestly, we’ll try. We tend to each other’s wounds. We’ll nurse each other back to near-health. Our pasts will fade. We’re not like all the others, you see. I won’t hurt you like they did, and you won’t get bored. We know we’re broken, but we fit together just so. Rubbish, of course, but it will be a blissful while before we realize it.

Sooner, we’ll start to wonder. When did we turn into these people we hate? You’ll find that you miss being hurt. Eventually, I’ll oblige. We'll each pretend to be sorry. You’ll find another lost boy, and I another Wendy. Each of us with our guilty secret. That will make us interesting again, briefly. But soon we’ll find reasons why we can’t be together, until all of a sudden we aren’t.

And then we’ll be on our way. Wandering through lives of sex and scars and tears, visible and otherwise. Forever getting back at our tormentors by tormenting each other. The damaged always find the destructive, though sometimes the roles change.

But we still have some time. And right now, it all seems so possible. The world remains at bay, and there are hours between us and morning. No need to rush. So hold me now, just for a while.