Already, it has begun. The slow uncoupling. The incremental shifting of orbit. The quiet cellaring of doubts – earmarked as likely ammunition. Yet I wonder if we might still mend it with kindness.

For not so long ago we were a kind, as though we had reached across the unbridgeable gulf between souls and seen – and felt and known – the fragile light of another. In the nearness of you the briefly flickering flame of being had unveiled the breathtaking paradox of its beauty; and in that mirror we saw. We became. And there we beheld the inexorable river of our unbecoming. And we were like stars, inventing time with fire. Yet even though, in secret unwhispered thoughts, we sensed the broken symmetry, I wonder if we might still mend it with kindness.

I note, beneath the outward signs, the tiny pauses, the gaze turned away. I hear the breath as it catches. Sense the minute evasions that will expand into lies. The first flakes of rust on the sheen. I know, as does the sea, where the scent of rain will end. Because today’s little differences, left to ache, will grow into next year’s war. Words misheard will morph into another language and we will cease to listen; and then we will be strangers once more. No longer a kind.

It’s happening now. Can you tell? Forms of forgetting. Incidental reductions. Habits and edits. The subtle myopia of names. The blurring out of humanity. But is it too late? Are we just actors in a theatre of divide and demise?

The crack may be a hairline today. We could laugh it off. Pretend we haven’t noticed. Or maybe, we might still mend it kindness.