Returnal.

"I cannot really know", said she.
"We might have been anywhere, anyhow.
It could have been under a single olive tree
right after the first ticks of the clock.
And I can't know whether it would mean silence
or the beginnings of a different kind of noise.
And we could be anything, from lovers to flowers
From soil to tempests and everything in between
And all that could have been."

"Could it have meant the world?", says he.

"It could have meant nothing at all.
Perhaps we were there holding fugitive hands
should we were banished into living, punished
for trespassing into completion.
Or maybe we actually chose to venture outside
seeking another shuffle of the cards to deal with
again -and isn't that more of a prayer than a sin?"

"At least it could have been."

"We might not even coexist then.
We might not even matter to each other if we did.
We might have walked a million pavestoned alleys
drunk, singing songs in tongues now incoherent."

"I could have killed you in my stupor, or I could not
You could have lived a million times again before me
You could have ended back here a thousand years ago
For were we ever able, to actually begin? Oh well..."

"Perhaps we could have been."

"Now that you stand with me, stay close.
Like the diminutive seconds wash through me
you too flood me with everything that could once be."

"I cannot know, it might be anything, anyhow."

"As it might have been, when we and the world could.
Before the grinding hands of the Clock began to matter.
Like the towering receding seconds which drown me
You too, equally vast and passing, rush within -speak
Of all that could have been."

"I can remember you everywhere."

"Even where we have never lived or died?"

"Or anything in between. I can tell you of us and of then
For I can speak of anything that could have been
If only time and space are the petty tools of what-was-not.
I will draw you a map, to the places we've seen and seen not
So you go back or forward and meet me for the first time again
And though I know already, tell me by the scent of your skin
Of everything that could have been."

"You know that we don't last forever. Not even us."

"I know the world is one great slow eclipse."

"But there is time beyond our time, space beyond the breath.
And there, we could have been forever, together or apart.
We could have had a house, with white little walls -or without
We could have had one tiny bed for the both of us -or none
It could have been in any place and any time -or not
Imrryr, Damascus, Tanelorn, Berlin.."

"And all that could have been?"

"It could. Or maybe not. Who knows?"
"I cannot know. We might have been..."
"Anywhere, anytime, anyhow."
"You might have called me sister, daughter, lover."
"You might have called me brother, father, son."
"I might have seen you in the street, my bed, or nowhere."
"I might have seen you in my dreams, my hopes, the TV screen..."
"But-"
"But all that could have been."