You sit across from me with your knees in knots. The best place for you to be. At arms length. Where you are safe from the soft trembling of my hands, the nervous pounding of an unsure heart against the bruised cage that holds it captive. Between the pages of you and me the ink has always blurred but  I have opened my mouth and let loose words, imagines that I wish I had kept to myself. Promises that only stoked this erratic flame. Cannot say for certain in the dark if you were laughing or crying but in the harsh light of day you were neither. You were gone.

I never can hold on.