She remembered when the laughter faded, how everything changed. It wasn't a sudden silence, but a slow ebb, like the tide pulling away from the shore, leaving behind only wet sand and the faint tang of the sea. What was left was a residue that tasted of salt, bitter and sharp like glass on the back of your throat. The slow realization of it had dawned with such clarity, revealing a landscape utterly different than the one she had believed in. She knew then, with a certainty that pierced through years of self deception, that the man she had shared her life with was a stranger, and the life she thought was theirs had been hers alone. The question was not how it had happened, but what she would do now with the persistent ache that had settled deep within her. She needed to shake it.

She perched on the…

Oh, what a wonderful life it would be,

If I were a leaf on top of a tree.

Graceful and bright, above all the rest,

Life would be grand, one of the best.

In winter I’d hide, all snug safe and warm,

Inside of a bud, I’d come to no harm

A tattered bunny rabbit,

She laid there at his feet.

She had a little boy,

He threw her on the street.

Back when she was new,

Her stuffing still in place,