I stood at the ocean, and watched as a seagull dashed a clam against the hard rock. Pecking, pecking, the tireless drone, like the words of denial we spoke, chipping and breaking away our connection, breaking and cracking sharply

Crack chip plunk crick.

We speak of impossibilities, across the seas, and yet we know, that no matter how sweet the words, the tender the reunion, we will never be what we see. The bittersweet taste in my mouth always lingers, your voice haunting some neural context in a faded dream. Words that you will never say come and rise from grey matter, your own voice trembles; it isn’t, it’s too close to the surface and threatens to split apart like an overripe fruit, and I weep for you, I weep for what we have lost, dashed across the rocks like the clam I saw in the jaws of that seagull, relentlessly torn by Nature’s distance until we remain, two halves of a shell lost at sea.