This.

This.

price likes watching you age, so much so he forgot it was stealing you away from him. cw. death

your wrinkles are like trophies.

its proof to him that he’s been doing his job. that he’s kept you safe. he was able to give you the gift of aging gracefully.

honey suckle mornings kiss light over the stretch marks on your hips. the hallow wings under your eyes prune and pinch when you smile. skin thinning like paper over the ink of your veins. you bottle it in the pens you use to write to your oldest.

the sunspots from the countless hours you’ve spent on the porch in his arms, as the sun sets behind a horizon that grows berries and the children he prayed for.

it’s all enough that when you bring him tea one evening, long into his retirement, stained glass window that was a wedding gift from Kyle brightening every new feature, he cries.

you kiss his forehead when he weeps, and he’s not even sure why he finds himself curled into the space where you age. sobs like a boy who lost something.

but you’re still warm enough to remind him your here. you’re blooming and alive just as much as your dying, and you’ll hold his hand as he watches two worlds fade at once.

you give him another decade. his favorite development in the final months was when the sun hit your wedding ring in the hospital, you glowed.

didn’t know you could do that. maybe he just never noticed.

he’s not sure how he outlives you. but the sun sets over the porch again, and as dusk hits your spot on the bench, he hears your laughter in the wind chimes.