Postcard of What We Lost

The Seine seems to hold its breath, as if it fears waking the ghosts that linger.

Our footsteps echo across Pont Neuf, as cold as the silver in your eyes when you whispered "stay."

Streetlamps bow their heads, trembling, while droplets quiver on iron ribs, and I count them like the seconds that pass between one heartbeat and the next, never to return.

Paris was meant to be our salvation.

I believed in the magic of postcards and poetry, in the idea that love could conquer all.

But love, like the tide, only claims what it drowns.

You stand where the morning light breaks, hands tucked into your coat as if trying to capture the light itself.

I would offer you my warmth, my veins, my years.

But the space between us has grown too vast.

Behind me, Notre-Dame stands as a silhouette in mourning.

The city hums, indifferent; somewhere, a café opens, cups clinking like fragile confessions.

I long to run to you, to rewrite the night before it slips away.

But you are already turning, and I am left behind.

How far would I go to save you?

Further than this river can forgive, beyond the last train, beyond myself.

Until even Paris forgets our names, and only the water remembers two reflections, almost touching.