We were sitting on a park bench
sometime at night
maybe 11 pm, maybe 2 am
taking turns on a menthol
cigarette
and a 500 ml bottle
of rum,
and we talked about
what we would do
after landing
a great job—
about our car
about our house
about our children.

The unforgiving winter
was clawing at our bones,
holding onto our nerves,
while we held onto each other;
her freezing palm
against mine,
and we looked ahead
into the trees
and
we were not going to make it—
not now, not ever,
and those days were the days of gold,
but we didn’t know it.

We didn’t know it yet—we never do,
and just like that
everything slips away.

Giovanni Mangiante, born on March 17^th, 1996, is a Peruvian writer who focuses his work on personal experiences ranging from solitude, loss, medication, addiction, failure, and recovery.