You say your life will be the death of you

New York woke me up to another Monday, one without S. I helped her pack before we left, she held my hand in the taxi and wrote our names in the transparent condensation from her breaths against the window. Tomorrow we're a day older and the traces will be lost.

She held my hand in the terminal building and drew a heart in the thin layer of dust on her little suitcase. "I love you" she said and nothing ever sounded more truthful.

We held hands and said our goodbyes as the sun began to set, Manhattan dressed in gold across the river. "Never let go" she said and I watched her disappear, like traces of names written on the inside of a taxi window.

When I got back it was dark, mother's apartment smelled of silence and solitude. I fell asleep early and dreamt about a merry-go-round on the edge of a pier somewhere. It was summer and the wind danced through my hair like fingers.