This too shall pass

When the concrete shimmers on a cool day, I slow just a little. Your mirage responds to thirst just a little slower, tendrils of memories reaching out from a time when I knew good days from bad ones, when good old days passed their knowledge through the generations. Your face flickers mid-laugh at a joke I hadn’t finished telling; no need for explanation. You knew I loved you. Those moments pass, like this one, like you did, like we always meant to. I no longer stop to watch slow deaths, and you are no longer dying one.