Troubadours

There are steaks in the fridge. Cold enough to eat. Red enough to keep up with the hunger. A needle in the pillow. Still waiting to be be closed. Sleep covered in fingerprints. From victims naming their prisons. Like the children they never had.

There was such certainty in the loss. I couldn't resist. The privilege of weakness.

We moved like children tangled in swings. Struggling to find a rhythm in the chaos. We turned the gift wrap inside out. And waited.

For the walls to talk. The way they always did just before all the doors went deaf.

Willing the wrinkles undone. And the ribbons to wake up. In love with the empty we'd been given.

Time had gone backward for so long. How could've I been prepared for its decision to move ahead.

There was so much promise in the lies.

Of course I believed it.

As impossible as it was.

There was so much to taste in that one moment of clarity. I'll never know which was the real thing.