Anticipating Words

He said, "You're a hard person to get a hold of... Must be worth it."

But it wasn't true. I was there. Listening to the phone ring. Unsure whether I should answer.

Sometimes you're the one watching the leaf fall and others you are the leaf. And all you can remember, all the way down, is having once been attached to that tree.

Then there's the ground. So solid. Unyielding. You know you can't fall any farther, but you keep waiting.

Worth it. I don't know. Maybe. In the way that everything is. Life's a blade. But it won't draw any blood just laying there.

And that's what we want. Most of all. Isn't it. To reassure ourselves we are real. Can be heard and seen and touched by people we've only just met. That they will notice and come back. Or try to. If we let them.

He said it was the first time and the last. I didn't believe him, but I pretended to. His fragile conscious quivering in my palms.

I told him I couldn't. Wouldn't. But I already did. You try to lie only to yourself, but you always ending up lying to everyone.

I never answer the phone anymore unless I'm certain it's something I want to hear. And I know it never is.