Late at night

I can remember each of them saying 

“I’ll love you forever” and “I’ll protect you forever”

But I could never really believe it

Because people say the things they feel in the moment

Not always the things they mean

For so much of what we speak is conditional

Like a tense of language, only appropriate under particular circumstances

We don’t talk of the present because we’re caught up in our future

But I’ve only ever believed what I know to be true

Because when that future beckons and seasons have passed

It will still be myself that I fall asleep with each night

and wake up to 

each day