Every day she gets up with the tentative dawn light, as she’s always done.
She washes and dresses with her usual deliberation and goes down to the street.
If her neighbours are about – as they generally are – she’ll stop, exchange rumours, hopes, expectations
and then continues to the bakery where she buys – as is her custom – a pastry for now, some bread for later.
Back in her apartment she takes her breakfast and allows the same old thoughts to creep in and settle.
And then she sets down to write,
in her familiar chair,
at her familiar desk,
the weight of the pen reliably reassuring.
And so this daily routine goes on……
goes on……
goes on without me.
Unbearable:
this life that goes on without me.