She sipped her drink,
eyes darting around the room,
like she was looking for something
she didn’t want to find.

I sat next to her,
close enough to hear her breathing,
close enough to feel the silence
where her words should’ve been.

When her hand brushed mine,
she didn’t pull away,
not right away,
but then she laughed too loudly,
like it never happened.

I let her have the lie.

the clock ticks louder here.
her pen scratches the paper,
like she’s carving me
into little notes.

she looks at me too long,
her eyes heavy,
like they’re waiting
for me to spill something
I can’t even hold.

I stare at the windows instead,
watch a bird flutter past,
and wish I could go with it.

„How does that make you feel?“
she asks.
I want to say,
„like I’m drowning in a room
with no doors.“
but I just shrug,
pick at my sleeve,
and let the silence win.

she says we’re making progress.
I nod.

but the only thing I leave behind
is the shape of my body
on the chair.

I asked the moon for mercy.
It laughed -
said mercy was for lovers,
not those who wander alone.

He said:
„Life is a coin,
  one side sorrow
  the other hope.“
Then he flipped it.
It never came down.

It’s not the big things—
not the promotion,
not the breakup,
not the years that pile on like
books you’ll never read.

It’s the small ones.

The way coffee tastes different
when you drink it alone.
The moment you realize the sound
of your own laugh feels foreign.

A dog barking two blocks down.
The scent of someone’s cologne in the wind,
and how it doesn’t belong to anyone you know.

Life collects itself in little drops,
small enough to ignore
until you’re drowning.