it's funny how much changes in 3 years. the accumulation of small decisions and deafened chance. the fruit upon some branches, plucked or unplucked, the ripe and oversweet, the perenially bitter that one can go back to again and again; the barrenness of other stems. it's funny where we end up, the people we end up with. the relationships we cling to, the ones we nurture, the ones that grow; the relationships that seem to fall away, not by one decision, though that happens too, but by a gradual parting, until one day we notice it on the ground, in a state of slow decay, a victim to gravity and time, to forces that sneak up because we let them. i remember too those flares, the passing flights that meet and explode outward into something beautiful, brilliant, a potential of unknown color or shape, but which pass then as well, irrevocably fleeting... three years to a day...