fern

Every time he meets with someone she dies just a little. Slipping backwards even as he gains momentum. She is letting go slowly but she is not certain if it is he she is letting go of or this tenuous grip on moving forward into her life. The march of days grinds to a halt. A slow creep now, one day trailing off into the next with no distinguishing mark to separate one from the other. When he kisses someone new she will take to her bed. When he creeps his hand under the line of a bra like he used to with her, she will pull the covers over her head. One finger, crawling under the line of her panties, whoever she is, real or imagined, and the girl climbs down into that crawlspace beneath the bed, peering sleeplessly at dust angels, breathing the litter of her own shed skin. They have had sex, his penis inserted into her body but from this angle she can't move, even to curl up into a more comforting spiral of despair. There are rumours that they are in love now, but she is beyond hearing. This is how she becomes undone, slowly and in direct opposite proportions to his own happiness.