You sit across from me, fingers tapping on the table like an old, tired clock
the coffee’s lukewarm, or maybe it’s just me, just us, cooled down past feeling
I think I know what you’re about to say—each word feels predictable,
like something we’ve each rehearsed in silence, rehearsed in sleep
over all those quiet nights stacked like dusty paperbacks in the dark.
You start to speak, and it’s all at once a whisper and a thunder
this is going nowhere, you say, eyes unfocused, tracing patterns in the grains of the table
but they could be roads we didn’t take, conversations we skimmed over like surface water,
laughs that slid away from us, thin as the ghosts of things we meant to say.
You remember? I ask, but the question is a loose thread, unwinding
you don’t answer, or maybe I don’t want you to, afraid that the answer
is already a shrug, a frown, something we didn’t even bother to feel fully
perhaps that’s where we lost it, somewhere in all the half-hearted glances,
in words we threw out like pennies, thinking they meant so little.
And you’re saying something now about how we grew apart
how things faded, softened, grew heavy,
but it just sounds like rain hitting a window in the next room
distant, muffled, and I’m not sure if you’re talking to me
or if you’re just talking to the echo of us, hanging in the air like stale perfume.
Maybe it’s been over for a long time, we both realize, like realizing
the book is already finished, though you’re still holding it,
turning the last page back and forth as if another ending might slip in
but there’s nothing, only the way your face looks in this light,
so familiar it’s like staring at a stranger in a mirror.
And I think, somewhere, we both hope one of us will say something grand
something that burns, something that brings back color, sound, a heartbeat
but the silence sits there, a wall between us, and we’re leaning back now
resigned, emptied, watching each other through a film of memories
wondering why we ever tried so hard, or if we tried at all.
