Is What Remains Enough?

I know how much we have left,
but not what is left of us... And that is the quiet ache, isn’t it?
Not the ending…
but the not knowing
what still breathes between us.

We began as fire,
a spark that needed no question,
no proof,
no fear of tomorrow.
Now we stand in the aftergliow,
searching the embers,
asking,
after 48 years, is this still warmth,
or just the memory of heat?

I find myself in this uncomfortable, terrifying silence, looking at the remnants of our love...

I am painfully aware of the time, the effort, the emotional energy we have left. It is limited.
And my heart is struggling to know what holds us here...

There is a quiet fragility should we point,
a trembling thread
holding us together,
not by passion,
but by habit,
by history,
by the echo of who we used to be...

And still,
I love you...

That is the hardest truth to carry.
To love you,
and yet question
if love alone
can outlast the gravity of life...

We have been drifting for years now,
losing pieces of intimacy
like leaves in a long, silent autumn.
Not all at once,
but slowly,
so slowly
we almost called it normal...

Can we carry this through the years?
I don’t know. I honestly do not know.
And that, right there, is the hardest truth I have ever had to say out loud...

Is what’s left of us
strong enough
to become something again?

I know how much we have left…
I just don’t know
if what’s left
is enough...
Carl Nicolas.