Loss is a mangled system.

A bridge that creaks with every step, a dread that screeches a promise: I will find you again.

It’s not quite right, but it isn’t wrong.

The loss will sail in a different branch, the same broken, molding, twisted roots that strangle.

You will trudge past that bridge, departing down that overgrown path, the glinting gold that softens the thawing ferns.

You will amble and perhaps, quite possibly you will glance back to that bridge.

It’ll darken, the sky running down.

You will remember what you have left.