the love of a life not to be

she was the first person
I saw myself getting old
with. And loved
it! Loved
what it was all going to be
With her.

When we
broke up,

the entire
continent-sized peninsula
projecting off from in front of us -
the future
- a future
- our future. Nothing

more. It cracked

at our feet,
and wrenched rumbling off
to one side, into and through a
dark, foamy, sparkling
and angry sea, and then
slid behind. She
wasn't on it. She wasn't
beside me - just gone. I can still feel

inside of me, the shape
and details of a land
mapped and plotted,
that will never be trod
or tilled.

We had it
made real,
together. Real enough
to go live there, and know the way. But
that whole span of land
has now foundered, and sunk
behind - and you

are somewhere,
gone.

The part of me that stood there that day,
too shocked to speak,

stands here still refusing to weep.