written under moonlight

There is something demoralizing about watching two people get more and more crazy about each other, especially when you are the only extra person in the room. It's like watching Paris from an express caboose heading in the opposite direction--every second the city gets smaller and smaller, only you feel it's really you getting smaller and smaller and lonelier and lonelier, rushing away from all those lights and excitement at about a million miles an hour.

"i suppose you do love me, in your way,” i said to him one night close to dawn when we lay on the narrow bed.

“and how else should i love you —in your way?” he asked. i am still thinking about that.

i am not there. I do not sleep.

i am a thousand winds that blow.

i am the diamond glints on snow.

i am the sunlight on ripened grain.

i am the gentle autumn rain.

when you awaken in the morning’s hush

i am the swift uplifting rush

of quiet birds in circled flight.

i am the soft stars that shine at night.

do not stand at my grave and cry;

i am not there. I did not die.

- Mary Elizabeth Frye

          - Excerpt from The Kindly Ones by Neil Gaiman