We can split our lives into before and after and it would still lack the meaning to make sense. What was before made sense for then. It was right to do and be and exist in the spaces we occupied. That time of a language spoken without words and thoughts pouring out in hope into the distance between us was everything and all, but is nothing now. What was then can't make sense now because none of it fits like it once did. It just doesn't fit. I imagine him now in the spaces of the nothing we share. The vision of time and distance help me see where he was real and large and where he was small. So small and insecure. The shadows looming above him are my creation. The shadows are false armor and his strength was in my shadows of light. I see where I imagined him as he stands alone and the ripples of memory wash around him, stripping my fake for his real. I was trying to save him when I should have saved myself from him.

This island is my home and the forgiveness that pardons me shines on my skin, warming the cold cavern that once burned with passion. Embers fight the darkness but refuse to burn out. The haze of memories taste of citrus tang, and spin under the light of the moon with blinding clarity. All I see is what was real and the place he once claimed as home was full of my light and now he walks in shadows I don't care to see.