Tonight my life moved on with

it's still a work in progress...

out you

as it tends to do when I'm

not watching.

It stops counting

days and conversations

over biscuits and decaf cups.

 

Tonight it hurt

a little less to slide

into the cool

sheets with no

hand left connecting to

my right.

No more locking, weaving

of fingers to enclose

my sweaty palm.

 

This night your surname

didn't slip through my lips,

nay, sputter past my pallette

or rest between taste buds.

 

No night is our night now.

We possess no mutual moment

except perhaps a shared fleeting

thought a

simply complex tick in time before

it catches the current in the air

or slides down - way down

into the cracks in the sidewalk

and mucks itself in street sludge.

 

I don't want past nights anymore.

Their dank, dark space rushes pulses

and quickens steps to and from

safety, leaving few sure which one

they arrive at.

 

But me

I know this night so well now that breathing

patterns cease to change as I turn

corners and heads through the pulsing

midnight breeze.

 

Please

understand this daunting right

of passage that allows

us to be free of the pleasantries

that lie on the backs of our togues

and nestle into our nasal cavities.