trust me when I say

we held so tight to that last vestige

of peace - it fled from our hands

like a bird set free

our fingers clenched into fists

at the loss of the only love

we’d ever known.

we watched the lights

flicker and dance across the water

the stars hung dead in the sky

their light the solemn echo

of a distant past

the last embers

of the world as it was

slowly faded from view

we watched them hang in the air

like the sudden flare of a firework,

and we remarked on the fleeting nature

of things and places and people

in stark contrast with the vastness of time

and the inexorability of the tides

like the moon, we had no light of our own

to offer a world shining by the grace of an absent god,

like the sun, we burned and burned

and are to this day setting fires

that will burn for a thousand years

and then a thousand more

before the soft rain comes to wash away

that final spark

of light

of life