To you, I tried to measure the distance to the lighthouse. That path, which felt so short when we walked it together, ended at a single empty bench this morning. The waves no longer erase two sets of footprints at once. They only push them away, one at a time, quietly. Even when the wind blew, the lighthouse's light didn't go out. As if to say it's still there, it keeps watch through the night. I'll be like that too. Even if you don't come again, the morning will.
Before sunrise, a quilt hangs at the end of the apartment corridor. In the empty daytime, that cloth stirred once in the wind. I sat side by side with its shadow and looked toward the window.
A dawn when the streetlight outside was still lit, I watched the sun rise leaving only that light behind. They shone on each other in a way I couldn't tell which was keeping watch.