At first, it was timid like tissue paper. Our connection. Unsure, slight. Vulnerable.
It became more. Strengthened into cardboard. Sturdy. But bendable. Prone to rips.
A few months later, we developed into paper mâché. Glued together. Tight.
Fast-forward to a year. We moved in together. Bought the furniture. Blended our lives. We were solid. Like wood. Although, sometimes there were splinters. They can really cut.
Sixteen months. I wondered if we could get stronger. Like a rock. A pillar for each other. But as long as we were wood, I was content. That was sturdy enough. For now.
Time crept on. A punishing series of events occurred. I won’t go into details. You were there, you know what happened. It really threw me for a loop. We survived the setback, but the splinters wouldn’t cease.
There was distance between us. It only kept growing. From a full stop, to a dash. Swelling and spreading. Quickly we were a paragraph apart, then three. Then pages. A vast void. You didn’t seem to notice. I reached out to touch you, but you had all these layers now. Layered under the weighty pages. I was left near the start.
Soon, we were books apart. Our structure was morphing, shifting into something else.
We were far more breakable now. After all, glass isn’t impenetrable.
Two years. We held on. You continued as you were. I went to therapy on my own, to figure out what was going wrong.
When I told you, you lost your temper and I found nothing worth staying for. The glass cracked like ice.
When daylight broke, the light blazed through a tiny crevice.
I was gone. I’ll never know how long it took you to notice.