Six Months

It's easy to write months and forget
the minutiae of minutes,
hours, seconds. Days.

It's easy to write six months on a page
and let them pass by - merely
the distance of one space
and nine letters.

It's easy to write
You will be gone for six months
and believe in the bridging power
of ink, paper, pixels,
spanning the concept of a sea.

But the reader knows that words are eternal,
time means nothing in a book,
and I do not have the luxury of living
within the page, beyond
the sluggish tick-over of time.

You will be gone for six months,
but really,
you will just be gone.