Carillon Sounds

The way he brushed her hair from her forehead, the lingering kiss of a finger drifting slowly down her neck, tracing the line of her collarbone and resting every so fleetingly on the rise of her left breast. Her heart raced to catch up, frantic to burst through her ribs, to be held in the palm of his hand, lifted to his lips and devoured whole. Three weeks, 4 days, 13 hours and 36, 37, 38 minutes since he dropped her off the edge of the earth with two small words. Three syllables, devastating in their simplicity, piercing like a hollow core bullet ripping through tissue and bone, exploding every cell of matter in it's wake. Cannibalizing her sense of self, the knowledge of who she was in relation to him. Of another. To be left, discarded. Unwanted, unwarranted in one's desire, wanting. Bereft. Forlorn. Early morning foggy sunrise drenched in misty rain and dewy greens surrounding the abandoned pergola overlooking the mountains cresting beyond the stretch of train tracks rising up from the hill at the end of their street. Her street. Her apartment, their bed, soaked through with tears and sweat and saliva, bodily fluids leaking from every orifice, threatening to drown her whole, engulf her in waves of what might have been, what once was, what will never be. Two small words. A carillon reverberating across the landscape of her body, pooling in the depths of her chest, burrowing like an owl in distress, desperate for relief, release. I'm leaving. Then go. Let go. Go.