Flipping through one of my travel journals, I found this from a few years ago:

I once read that Ernest Hemingway was dared to write a story in 6 words.
He did it.
For sale: Baby shoes. Never worn.
I wasn’t dared to write an elliptical tragedy, but I couldn’t stop it from writing itself.
The saddest words that I’ve ever heard: Keep in touch.

Because that means it’s the end of an era, an end of something. Correspondence now confined to a pad of paper, an epistolary romance that never was.

No longer day to day contacts.
No longer a part of each other’s lives.

And as sad as it is to see someone become a stranger, there’s beauty in it, too.
In knowing that out there—someone has memories floating around of you.
Conversations haunting their thoughts and staining their lips.

At moments, you’ll feel like you’re choking
Air escaping your lungs and ceasing to return
An emptiness chilling your bones

Embrace it, endure it
The darkness will give way
Shining, crepuscular light on the horizon

A screaming mouthful of forevers hushed to a whisper,
The cacophonous catalyst crashing down
The truth about forever is that you can’t hold onto forever.
This is the here and now, in this present moment—in this forever.

*originally published on my Instagram