Noticed in Retrospect

Are you there for the aliveness of a moment before it passes? When the train ride is long and everything flashing by out the window becomes a blur and the words spoken in Dutch, a language you can’t understand, make your head spin? When the clouds are hanging low in the sky, painted underbellies glowing pink and orange, and the pain of unspoken goodbyes is tangible?

Were you there when your friends surrounded you, your eyes glassy from rum and love? Unbridled laughter. Cheeks hurting from smiling so much. That you’d all be friends forever didn’t need to be said; it’s known, and yet when someone says it out loud there’s a lightness to your heart, a comfort in the certainty that you’re never going to one day find yourself completely alone in life.

And when the quiet snow slow-danced to the ground out the window while she told you she wants to work on her American accent, her words heavy with traces of French and the rich notes of her indigenous language, and all you could think is that you never want her to say words the way you do.

Did you let yourself feel it all, when you realized you were left alone and stripped down to the raw, gritty foundation of everything you are made of, spring rain soaking your skin and turning the dirt to mud at your feet, and you stood there amid the rubble feeling a wave of peace wash over you, showing you that you could lose everything but still live?

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