scenes from a dying empire

She is pacing again, anxious again, frustrated again--I feel trapped is what she told me, and I wanted to tell her I understood but I'm not sure I do. I wanted to tell her I could help but I can't. All I can do is watch, and listen. I'd offer a shoulder to cry on but she doesn't like being touched. She is my friend and she is suffering and there is nothing I can do about it.

(She has told me so many times you are helping just by being there and it is sweet of her to think of my feelings even at a time like this. It breaks my heart, but it's sweet.)

We used to come up here sometimes, when the days were getting long and the nights were just warm enough, to get away from it all, to leave behind who we were by day and just be us, whoever we were. I'm not sure either of us knew. It was a place of comfort then; now we mostly come up here when the world is too much. A place to worry. I hate that I'm starting to dread coming up here. I think she is, too, which doesn't help. This was our place.

She stops pacing, looks at me, and sort of freezes. Like she wants to say something, or scream, or keep pacing, but she can't. Her hands clench and twitch and finally she turns away and says it's too much. It's too big.

And at first I don't understand but--of course. I've been feeling it too, I think. Once, a long time ago, there were places where it wasn't encroaching. It being--hmm. The death throes of a dying empire? But there is so much else. It's not just overwhelming because of how vast it is, but because of how minuscule, how trivial. Even the trivial has been devoured by this creeping sense of--

--of being trapped.

She sees the understanding in my face, smiles a bittersweet smile, and tells me I don't know how much longer I can do this. My breath catches, but you're here. That's enough.

At least at night everything is peaceful. The city is asleep, the stars are shining, and if we must be prisoners here, at least we are here together.

golden

The trails were oddly empty this weekend, when we got up early--as early as we could, eager to beat the holiday weekend crowds. We hiked the first part of the trail in darkness, and at first we were certain that it was empty because, somehow, we were the first ones to arrive. But there was no one, just a few people returning from their own trips. No new day hikers or backpackers. Just us and the mountains and the woods. The weather was magnificent, the mountains were beautiful; it seemed nothing short of a miracle how perfect the trip was, how alone we were out here. Such a marked contrast to the constant noise and static of the city.

It wasn't until we tried to return home that we understood: we were alone because we were the last ones to leave. The city fell silent after we left, and the suburbs and small towns followed shortly after. No one online knew what caused it, before online fell silent, too. So we turned around and headed back.

We can't survive out here forever. Even if we can find enough forage to live on, the winter will come and we aren't prepared. But it was beautiful, and if the silence takes us here, at least it will be someplace too beautiful to be believed.

a diptych of poems

ELEGY FOR A SUNKEN CITY
The city seemed so empty
when you weren't here.
I promised I'd return, didn't I?
Didn't I promise I'd rescue you?
But I fought my way back
to our city,
our home,
and there was nothing left but silence.

Of course I drowned it.
Of course I shattered the floodbanks--
they are,
after all,
my floodbanks, because this city
is mine,
and there is nothing here
worth saving
without you.
They said you'd left
so I did what I had to.
I let the ocean
reclaim her own.

Perhaps they'll remember me as a hero:
perhaps, as the waves crash through the marble streets,
they'll tell themselves stories
of how I sacrificed my city to save the world.
But I didn't. I sacrificed it because
I hoped I'd drown with it.

The waves are calm now,
the screams of my city finally silenced.
It's oddly peaceful,
here alone with the gulls
and my thoughts
in the dead city beneath the sea.
I hope you'll come back home.



ANOTHER CASTLE
You promised me, when you fled,
you'd come back and rescue me.
I never promised I'd wait.
Did you think I would?

I have no time for you to lead your armies
to glorious victory, nor to
defeat my captors in single combat.
I know this prison better than
I know myself.
Did you think it would
hold me?
Did you hope it would?

Life, I'm afraid, is not so glamorous:
no one will thank you for your conquests.
No one will sing your triumphs.
I never asked for war in my name,
for blood to be spilt on my behalf.
I was never going to stay
and you,
my love,
were never a hero.