You stick around long enough
And magical things happen
You stick around for three hundred years
And you become a mountain
I don't mean that poetically either
I really mean it
If you live for three hundred years
Your bones turn to rocks
Your skin expands
You reach into the ground
And take root
Just not like a tree
Like something more solid
Trees have life
After three hundred years
You no longer have life
You just have size
And size in and of itself
Isn't always...satisfactory
My wife came to visit me the other day
She sat down in front of me
And asked me if I ever loved anybody else
We were married for thirty-eight years
I was on this planet for two hundred and sixty-two years before I met her
She sat there and asked me
If I had ever loved anybody else
And I didn't say anything
Because I couldn't
But a wind whistled off my north side
And when it rushed to her ears
It sounded like the word 'No'
Because I never did
I never loved anybody else
When I started to age
After centuries of staying the same
I realized that it was love
It was love that was making me grow
And I thought--
Well, this is wonderful
But also terrible
Because eternity was so promising
And all I did with it
Was take a handful of time and love
And hand it over
To someone else
But when I saw my wife
Sitting in front of me
Gazing at a mountain
Talking to what she thought
Was the ghost of me
Following her around
When really it was much more physical than that
I suddenly didn't feel like my transformation
Was a waste of a never-ending life
Instead, I felt like I'd done the right thing
And in doing so
I'd become something grander
Than what I was
Something worthy of awe
And appreciation
I was a mountain
Time had made me magnificent
But only time filled with love
I sat there
My wife sat there
Time passed
And when I looked up
After what felt like seconds
There was a river
Where my wife runs
A river going into and past
This quiet mountain
And that was how I knew
We'd have all the time
In the world
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