Waiting

photograph by Matt Mooney

Tell me your stories, whisper while the windows

swing open.

Ancient murmuring slither across wrinkled bedsheets,

setting off caricatures and scenes in every moment of time

“we’ve been here before...we’ve seen this before…”

such familiarity lingers in our bones, in our beds.

But even with this closeness,

you shuffle to the bathroom, pretending you don’t know

I’m awake.

You switch on the light, you hang your head heavy

and curled over your chest.

You were taught not to cry so you don’t. Instead, you sit wondering

what to name these emotions.

They swirl in and out, circling down through your eardrums,

sweeping into your anxieties.

My arms stretch out onto your pillows.

Two strangers in a bed.

Is this what I have become to you?

Is this why you seek solace in a tiled room?

My eyes squinch with sleep.

I should stop pretending.