Corroded

Time has a way of eating at everything, like a seaside breeze - calm and gentle, fluttering through the wings of kites over the sand - so innocuous, you know? You forget it's corrosive and the rust and rot sneaks up on you until you wake up one morning and the deck's collapsing and the ships sinking, and all that's left is old rotted driftwood littering the beach front.

Sometimes it's not so bad - you know, time heals all wounds or whatever - and it does, eventually, because it eats away at the memories, and when you can't remember how they felt in your arms, you can't miss them so much. When you can't remember the knot in your gut and how you couldn't breath, you forget to feel the pain of it.

The wind blows and keeps blowing so constant that it builds dunes of leaves and fallen petals and school report cards and grocery lists and appointment cards inside your chest, the void doesn't seem so big and overwhelming - it all absorbs the sound of your tears and they don't echo back to you anymore. And for a while you stand and wait for it, but eventually you move on and forget to cry because time has a way at eating away at everything.

And one glorious night in the middle of a thunderstorm or a meteor shower or football game or hand of Gin Rummy you feel like a queen - like you're the one gift that other person has always wanted and whenever you walk in the room they get it, over and over again. But what seems like the next day you wake up and realize you've become that pair of fuzzy slippers, the ones they still love but wouldn't necessarily be able to say what color they are. Comfortable and predictably there, but basically unnoticed and taken for granted. Because time has a way of eating away at everything.