ruth keeps waiting for it.
her girlfriend cups her face with gloved hands, and ruth guesses this is as good a time as any.
after having a cup of her favorite tea at the coffee shop that witnessed their first date and now their nth one—babbling, laughing, kissing, refilling drinks, shins pressing together under the table and lips never staying still. after she drops ruth off at her front door and makes sure she's content. while facing the chilly wind with one of two hearts hanging by a thread. she draws circles on her cheeks, ephemeral warmth, and ruth waits, everlasting dread.
it's not you, it's me. it was good while it lasted, but it's just not working out for me anymore. we're better off as friends. she's gonna pull out all the stops, and the worst part is that she's gonna mean all of them. it gives ruth no room to get mad and put the blame on her, so with warm hands tilting her head up, she awaits, dreadful.
“i had fun today,” is what she gets instead, an air of elation about it that ruth can't quite understand. “thank you.”
“for what?”
she shrugs, smile never hesitating. “just—everything.”
hands pull ruth that last bit closer to her and she leans down to leave a peck, quick and light. her hold does nothing but get warmer by the second. not that ephemeral anymore.
ruth blinks. “text me when you get home?”
it's like an hourglass. you can turn it over as many times as you like, but the sand will merely continue to flow.
on the bus on their way back from school, when they kiss goodbye at the doorstep after one of them's over for dinner, during a study date at the library where they will whisper yell every conversation, over the phone on a tuesday night after hours. it always feels like it's about to come, yet it never does.
ruth keeps waiting for it.

You want to figure it out—how to touch him without feeling like that's where he's supposed to be, under your fingertips and deep underneath your skin, because it's so lonely there—in the crevices between your bones and in the path your blood runs time and time again—and you don't wish it on him, to be the one thing that forever stays still.
You have you and you have no one and somewhere along the line they became one and the same—If you never move on and grow earthwards instead of up, doesn't that count as settling down?—If you stand in a quiet room staring at a broken clock, can't you still work out the world?
You try to speak up, but your voice wavers and breaks, a faltering tendril of unexpressed sense. You think of not being able to give him this—your words detangling themselves and only having a bunch of letters you can't make sense of and a heavy heart there's no getting rid of—and you try again.
You say, "I want to, and yet—"

A beam of light suspends the asymmetry of reality and divides darkness in perfect halves, starting from the door sill, spreading like a yarn ball unraveling, and stopping at the tip of my toes, just when the light runs out of thread.
I've been warned, I have. To touch it is to burn, and there's no beauty in scars.
And yet, I want to swallow it — I want to lean forward enough for my face to feel the warmth, to see gold and scarlet and the color of worship behind closed eyes — lean in another bit and soak in the feeling of fire fawning over my cheeks, of red sitting on my lips — and then, then I would open my mouth, ready to drown in the sun, but not without first promising I'll show you how to take pride in sharing scars, if only you too lean into the light.

i trace the line
where missing becomes longing
across the map of your back,
playing a tune
only i can hear
on the keys of your spine,
and i hope memory
isn't lost in the afterlife,
because this is the one moment
i yearn to never leave behind

i plug on my earphones
or turn up the radio
i hear someone hum
or put on a record
and every time i ponder
how you’ve managed to get into the hearts
of all these people singing about
honeyed naivety and feelings the color of wine
because i can't conceive the thought
of writing a love song without you in mind
who else is there to fall for?
how can there be love
that doesn't involve you?
you own tenderness
and inherited devotion
and i'm reminded of it
every time i plug on my earphones
or a car radio
hear someone's hum
or your favorite record

Lights on, first act.
Scrambling for words, you stand up on unsure feet—you weren't given a script. You hate improv, that's all you can think.
Silence finds home in the crowd and settles down, nausea circles its arms around your heart, and even-numbered eyes watch you breathe in and out.
But then a hand pushes you back to your seat, and delivers the finest speech, and you're saved from blues browns and greens blinking at your every feat.
You like this, you think, as the second act begins.
On your chair you keep, thinking up your own scene, one detailed to the last bit.
But carrying it out might be a risk, because the voice of the hand that held you down remains rattling about, and it would be a pity, wouldn't it? To stand up from this silky cushioned seat and strain your own two feet, in the hopes that you can deliver better lines than these.
You like this, you're sure, safe and sound when you're far from the lights.
The voice drones on and on, and you listen just closely enough to know when it's your cue to act, mere moments that flash by once a while.
But as the third act starts, you wait for the voice to speak up, only to find silence and uncountable wondering eyes. A minute passes by, and you know that if you were to stand up no one would flout.
You're free to do your thing, begin your thought up scene with its meticulous script, and how scary that is with blues browns and greens staring at your unsteady feet.
You hate this, you know. How are you to learn all this, all the lines the voice was supposed to speak? Or should you say some of your own? No, that ought to be wrong, your story is not yours.  
So you remain sat and forbid the third act to wind down until a new voice and an unknown hand come with their own script at last.
It's all fine—as long as you can't be the one to blame for the ending claps or a jeering crowd, you can deal with blue-green-brown waiting for you to stand up.