"You don’t go to Denny’s.
You end up at Denny’s
when it’s 3 in the morning and
you’ve lost control of your life.”
Sigh.
*******.
Well, it is the middle of the night,
and I am sitting in a booth
over a cup of coffee that tastes like regret,
but why am I here?
I’m sorry.
I needed to get away.
I needed to get away
from the way your voice
ticks in the back of my mind,
I raise the mug to my lips and pretend
that the coffee trailing down my throat
is still your promise,
still warm, and tinted with sugar.
I needed to get away
from the words you sent on my phone screen
swimming back and forth across my eyes,
I’ve dreamed about you so often
that your smile is burned into
the inside of my eyelids.
I’ve made it a game to see
how long I can go without blinking.
because while I don’t want to see a world
where you and I don’t fit together,
waking up from a world where we do
is so much worse.

(Summer 2014.)