i can remember listening quietly to myself. a boy with eyes like fresh bruises and long fingers. and a throat. lithely he wrapped with them spelling out silence, running his fingers over the ridges counting out the seconds. letting the steam drift up to his nostrils. patience and soulless verbiage. wasting hours on this. screaming at the walls. challenging nothing. the platform was empty. he was vanishing already. fading. it was the warning before the decline. decisive agitation. and i remembered only by the smallest margin what used to be there. and i can remember listening quietly for the echos of inapparent and disingenuous exchanges where you could hear the smile in the hello where you could feel the rush in the embrace. and i wondered with my knees pulled up under my chin what currents carried us so far from that place.