as if the words are stuck there.
“All I know?
“I wanna build somethin’ that fuckin’ lasts.”
His voice fades,
embarrassed by the simplicity of it.
“A life, a place… whatever.
“Somethin’ stayin' and all mine.
“Everything’s always felt like it had an expiration date.”
He tries for a smile, but it slips right off.
He’s not walking alone.
There're ghosts on his shoulders,
shadows on his heels,
scars under his skin.
But I don’t dig.
Wounds belong to the person who's bleeding,
not the one watching.
His finger taps the edge of the glass
as he looks out into the city.
“Eventually, you get sick an' tired of shit blowin' up in your face, y’know?”
The shrug he gives is half a heartbeat late,
and the memory of the look on his face from that night flashes up— when I left him standing there in the basement without a goodbye, an explanation, an apology.
It’s still hovering between us, heavy as fuck.
We keep dancing around it
like if we don’t touch it, it can’t cut us open.
“Dream right now’s just makin’ mortgage next month. Keep the lights on. Try not to punch a wall when the next hospital bill shows up.”
He laughs,
hating that he said it, hating how it sounds.
“Yeah. Real empire-builder shit, right?”
He says it as a joke, but it’s then I know these wounds aren’t scabbed over. They’re still bleeding all over the goddamn floor.
“Hospital bills?” I ask it, one foot in.
