How often did I beg the world for signs?
Fog purls above the river. Years have passed
like shadows. Everything that’s happened since
floods seamlessly together. Cold so dense,
it’s hard to breathe. You left me—I collapsed.
Why did I need to beg the world for signs?
Our final photograph—your shoulders tense—
no laughter there, no gesture of love. Our past,
flat as a shadow. What has happened since?
Time drifted like snow, absolving all your sins
and most of mine. I’ve saved the worst for last.
How when I begged the silent world for signs,
instead, it showed me how all grief begins
its slow diminishing—love’s monuments lost
in the marbled fog like shadows. Ever since,
this loss was the land I lived on and its fence.
But now, the gate swings open. Fog so vast,
it’s blinding—no more shadows, no more since.
I begged. The world has given me these signs.
Ashley Anna McHugh
Latest posts by Ashley Anna McHugh (see all)
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