We began with good timber. Straight-grained, strong, full of promise. Together we laid out the pieces, measured twice, marked our lines true. In those early days, every strike of the mallet and every whisper of the plane felt like music—two craftsmen in rhythm, shaping something greater than ourselves.
But somewhere along the way, the harmony broke.
One day I noticed the woodplane no longer sang; it only scraped. The bright whistle of steel on wood—the music we once worked by—was drowned by the dull grind of a blade left unsharpened. Where once your laughter blended with mine like chisels keeping time, silence grew heavy between us. Our hands, once reaching for the same joint, now moved in different directions.
A chair cannot stand when its joints are left unglued. Love is the same. It isn’t the timber that fails—it’s the care. We stopped sanding where the grain asked for patience. We stopped oiling where the wood begged for touch. What we began with was sound, but we let neglect creep in. And even the strongest oak will warp if left untended.
I’ve heard people say, “We just grew apart.” But I see it differently. We set down our tools. We stopped building together. The seat lies unfinished, the legs uneven, the backrest leaning—because neither of us chose to keep shaping it.
Still, I believe in repair. I know that a warped leg can be straightened with heat and pressure. A dull edge can be ground sharp again. Even a cracked mortise can be reset if both hands return to the bench with patience. But it takes two craftsmen, in rhythm, willing to work the grain together. One hand alone cannot finish the chair.
Love is no different. We don’t fall out of it—we stop crafting it. And without harmony, the masterpiece remains unfinished.
I still run my hand along the wood sometimes, feeling the promise in its grain. I imagine what the chair could have been if we had kept shaping it side by side. Perhaps one day, if we both return to the bench, we can pick up the tools again and finish what we started.
Until then, the chair waits—silent, unfinished, a reminder that love, like wood, does not die. It waits for the craftsman’s touch, for the harmony of two hands working as one. 
Originally published on Benjie's Bench - Measuring Life's lessons in Millimeters