Secret Paths

What can we say? There is nothing. There are no words left to use. We used up every word we could say to each other before this began. Now it is over, there is nothing left to say.

The words are like autumn leaves, brown and brittle, we watch as the wind blows them away from us, heaping them in places too far for our reaching fingers to touch. All the words, the precious ones and the wasted ones, are now heaping together under the bare skeletons of trees. Trees that were once verdant green, sheltering us under their protecting shade, protecting our naked skin from the heat of the sun and the eyes that would only condemn us.

These secret paths no longer lead us to our special places. They only take us away from each other, separate and alone once more. We go back to our empty lives, full of words that sound, but have no meaning; and actions that have no time for gentle gestures of momentary tenderness.