Fading Into Darkness

It's in the way you catch a heart,
in the way you hold it with two hands
and never, never let it...

It's in the way you whisper in an ear,
speak all your pretty magic words
of clocks, and birds, and things that...

It's in the secrets that you'll tell,
the ones you hold in your breath
and never share with a...

Can you believe what she told me?
She told me it was the most obvious thing in the world.
Imagine!
She told me it was always there,
always simple, always what it always was.
I believed her. Maybe I still believe her.

Of course I loved her, and that was half of it.
I'd have believed the sky was green, if she'd told me.
Sitting there beneath the trees,
watching the skin of her arms go speckled
in the sunset chill,
it was easy to believe in magic.

Not that it was magic she taught me about,
not exactly. Subtler than that, or more obvious.
It was there on her lips,
when she spoke all breathless, with her cheeks flushed.
It was there on her lips,
when I kissed her for the last time, long ago.

If you knew her, you'd know her.
I know that sounds obvious, but it wasn't like that,
it was precious, it was something else entirely.
She had depths, real depths,
not in any silly, pretentious way, or anything,
not the way you'll see people fake it sometimes.
She didn't know how to fake it, poor girl,
so unlike the rest of us.
I think it's why she passed so young.

Could I ever tell you what she taught me?
Would it even matter in the end?
I could say she taught me honesty,
or kindness, or the joy of living.
(Not so much the words as much as what was in them.)
But I'm not here to preach a sermon,
and I'm not here to give a eulogy.
It was everything she taught me,
everything and nothing at all.

It was there in the way she caught me.
It was what she whispered in my ear.
It was the secrets she told me.
I still see her face,
sitting under the tree,
fading into darkness.
Watching the sunset,
fading into darkness.
Fading into darkness.

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(Photo credit: "Sleepy" from Lianne Viau on flickr)