A Slowly Dissolving Empire

The day I uncramped my fingertips

From the final handhold

Of who we once were.

I heard a resounding shiver across

The cliffside scrub

As we watched the ocean below

Gnash time into tiny grains

And our marble empire dreams

Dissolve the slushy sandcastles

We knew them to be.

Salt wind seethed between our teeth

When we lied softly

"I'll see you soon."

"Swiftly come back to me."

"I'm sorry."

"Sweetest love..."

You unceremonious abandonment

Your nomadic love wandered forlornly

Into the damp caverns of weekend lovers

And I almost crawled in the lint and forgotten coins

When you asked me to come with you in your pocket

A trinket to protect you from loneliness

But I let go.

I peeled my fingers, one by one

Falling as inconsequentially as a drop of rain

Joined whole and great

With the ocean.

-Telling him we can't be friends anymore