Fed by its tap root or a sip or two of water each desert year, a tree may live millenia. Girdled by an idle child with a dull gouge, unable to taste its sustenance, it may stand a century, dead as stones. I have watched my heart turn fibrous and the fibres calcify. When you were gone, I told someone that it was as if a cavity in my chest were empty and only you would fit. Exposed to the desiccating vacuum, the cavern is now a part of me, hardwalled and unaccommodating to flesh.
Love dies slowly.
Yes, to my capacity, which is little. Yes, more than I love any other person. A measure of poverty, not excess, that is. Yes, but I don't know what 'love' means in such a context. Neither of us exists.