Slender Hope

She had a slender hope built off of almost nothing. She didn’t even know why she was hoping. It was skinny love. It was a sickly sapling that would never grow into a tree. There was no reason for her to hope for something more than what they had. All they had were years of wasted time and empty apologies. Words are only words, especially when they don’t mean anything. They’re only sound waves that travel through the air to be received by an ear drum.

How could it be anything more? They were broken before they even started, yet the hope that they could put each other back together persisted. They were two people who only had sorrow in common. They were two logs that leaned on each other after a storm. Without the strong winds of time, they would never have grown together, or anywhere near each other. They had met by coincidence, and had stayed together for reasons unknown to both of them.

She wondered if he felt the same way. If he carried the same hopeless hope she did. If he felt like he couldn’t leave her, like she felt she couldn’t leave him. She knew it would never work on a long term basis. They were just two people whose lives ran parallel for a while.

They hadn’t talked for months, yet stayed in each other company constantly out of pure habit. The other was just a body to let the other know they weren’t alone. They were furniture to each other, a couch to curl up on, a teddy bear to hold. They only existed in the same space, yet they were trying to be something more.

Just last the year, she thought as she lay in his arms. She didn’t want to leave him, but knew she couldn’t live with the empty, bittersweet feeling that was growing in her stomach. She opened her mouth to speak many times over the past few weeks, but could never get the words out. They were just a pair of mimes. Body language speaks louder than words, but it can only go so far before it’s lost in the wind.