shiny black metal at midnight.
God, I don’t drive well —
crashed into the white picket gate,
into your yellow rosebed,
wheels frozen in the mud,
stuck in reverse.
We’ve been strangers for a year now
since you moved back home,
choking on the rust eating
away at our hellos —
thorn-prick red, like a nightingale’s
blood on the rose.
Our conversations paled,
like starving homeless shadows,
thinning till their skeletal frames
peeked at us from behind doors,
haunting and hiding
while the seasons changed.
The week before your move,
we were so excited we glowed,
said we’d make angels in the snow
to thaw a winter whiter
than any we had seen before.
Maybe the dirge of daily life
and drab chores got in the way,
calendars got too busy,
or maybe we just changed.
I’ve packed my bags,
the purple and the blue,
a one-way ticket in my pocket
knows I leave at noon.
When I slip out through the back door,
I’ll try and make no sound,
perhaps we can talk again
when I am not around.