"do you believe in madness?"
i whispered in the dark, half afraid of a reply.
"yes,"
trembled from her lips,
"but this it not it."
i say her lips trembled but in truth i could not see her face. perhaps it was i who was trembling, but if only in my imagination i could of sworn, she was trembling too.
the walls pushed forcibly on my chest and spine each time i inhaled

each mouthful of still air pressed me to the sides as a harsh reminder that the passage was only barely wide enough for us to walk through sideways, shoulder to shoulder, scraping our skin as we went.
i'm not sure how much time had passed
not much had changed
since the last word had been spoken out-loud

i had begun again to forget what words felt like,
both on the lips and upon softing the delicate hairs of the inner ear
all i could know was the dark, and my breathing, and her breathing.  and i begun to wonder if she was breathing at all,
of if the fainter, more distant breaths-  were not just echoes of my own.
had i gone mad. was i truly alone. no companion. no accomplice. just an invention of my lonely silence.
was it days that had been passing. or were they weeks.

perhaps just a few hours, and my sense of brooding, too dark.