She spoke like the rush of quiet air you hear while passing under a bridge in heavy rain.

The wiper blades scratched on the semi-dry glass like a broken record.

Amidst the rancor of the bar the conversation lulled. After the last "remember when?" I watched the puddle of beer foam at the bottom of my glass.
"Ohhhh..." I mutter with a fleating half-grin. As if to say "Good times" but somehow unable to do so.
He sat across from me staring not at the empty Budweisers in front of him, bit past them. He stared into shadows around the edges, the floorboards below the table, and the earth beneath that. To him if he just looked hard enough, he could almost make out the other side of the world.
He clenched the can and it made a subtle pop yet remained uncrushed.
Staring on, just louder than a whisper, with a fleating half-grin, he said "I hate my life."

Rachael.
I heard you were moving
My procrastination caught up to me.
A text was all I could bear.
A shot at something long gone or already losing

4 hours
I Lit up like a homeless man with a winning scratch off
Who said we couldn't pretend?
For a couple weeks or so...

15 hours
It takes a split second to bounce a signal off a satellite and back to earth
But 15 hours for me to lose you.
You packed that moving van and put me in your pocket.
Two men and a truck.
What about two hearts and a chance?
That chance was beyond fragile
Must not have seen the label
"Handle with care"

Distance
You promised a post card.
Instead I got an unanswered question
A perpetual reminder of what could have been

Boundaries.
I spoke of a future. For both of us. Separate, Unable to live for an idea.
I wanted us both to live.
I called it "boundaries"

Pain.
I heard it in your voice
I hope you heard the struggle in mine
I didn't bite the hand that fed me.
I destroyed it.

Silence

Haunting.
I must have written you 20 letters
Even if I hadn't thrown them all away
Wouldn't have done me any good
Never got your address anyway.
Or a post card.

It had no batteries.
It could never die
If still it is found
It must only be wound
How lucky we are to find
We always
Have someone to wind.

I went to the cemetery with you
I saw the frost hug the caskets of the loved buried deep below
I saw the the tombstones stare at you
The one source of light
How could the dead seem so alive?
The hill screamed Crimson
Yet you smiled back Gold
The cold in our entwined fingers
The warmth in our searching hearts.
The snow settled softly.
On a thousand possible directions with the same destination.
I saw the cemetery in you.

Our hopes burn like the butts of the cigars we smoke.
You smell sweeter than any whiskey.
The house vanishes brick by brick
But these planks are here to stay
A locomotive howls up at the moon across the field
A harvest moon casting an orange glow
Intercepts our prismatic tears
All is dull and dark
Save our shining faces

You love sculptures.
Which I always found ironic.
As it's quite clear
You were chiseled from something divine
The magnum opus of some artist long ago passed.
Your lines like the cosmic waves of a million galaxies.
The burn in your eyes
Hotter than any star.
The brightness of your smile drowns out nebulas.
Your words fill the vacuum of my space.