I have spent thinking of other words, other meanings to

define what has happened; I think of present and past tense,

struggle to make sense of it, them. For it has all blurred together

and words like gone feel redundant, three months feel

redundant. I wish–I wish, to break apart the seals and throw

in every passing word of condolence or pity; I wish for

passing to be only a synonym for flight rather than what

it is. And what it is–that is what I have finally figured out:

It is finding a stone on a distant shore as twilight sets;

it is losing that stone and laughing. It is listening

to the whispers of the lapping waves and whispering

something back, something inaudible and indecipherable

and incomplete, yet the only thing that has made sense

in this new life, so far into this long new life.

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Alfi Moss-White is an artist born and based in South London. Their writing stems from a place of meditation and observation, and can be found elsewhere in Seedlings Magazine, Buoy Press, and Sunspot Literary Journal.