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Dilate.

My girlfriend and I are lying on a rug on some distant beach; we're cuddled up under a thick Guatemalan blanket. There is a fire roaring just in front of us, our bellies full of home cooked bread and freshly caught fish. Around us there is only the slightest of breezes, just enough to make skin feel alive.

The beach itself stretches beyond view in both directions, like wings spreading from the body of us. We're lent against a mound of sand we have built up as a back and behind it begins the first few clumps of dune grass - almost like a heartbeat before the dunes themselves bleed clumps into each other, atrophy out over the land until eyesight fails.

Ahead the sand chases itself toward the sea, ignoring the coldness it folds itself under the waves - a child's attempt at tidying up. There are a few large stones that make themselves as obvious as ink stains; paperweights holding the beach to the ground.

The rest of this scene is a faded-denim sky gradually darkening. Stars beginning to blink their evidence of eons and explaining distance without speaking.


.


Contract.

I try to focus on this perfect moment and instead I'm thinking about her sleeping with another man. I'm thinking about this because I know it has happened and it is all I can think of when I look at her. Heartbroken, I'm hoping I have the strength to leave her; know that you can't escape your problems, but people can be outrun.

I'm thinking about how perfectly flawed this moment is, how perfect it is for her; so unknowing of my knowledge of her. This moment now tattooed on my mind as the cadence of this fateful romance.




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