they walk out still laughing at a joke from two hours ago
the song in the car they both sang the wrong words to
they sit in the driveway with the engine ticking so the feeling can finish
they would have signed anything swearing it was perfect
years of tuesdays in a small room with a clock turned to face the chair
they took the pills one winter and handed the bottle back, the slow way was working
a boss, a neighbor, a stranger in line said you look lighter
and they could feel it, a knot they had finally found the end of
then the message comes, or the days of nothing
a list of old fires, dated, and not one of them from this year
the night they carried home like a trophy was a long bus ride for someone else
they were being waited out the whole time they sang along
one of them had seen them cry in a parking structure ten years ago
knew the name of their first landlord, knew how they took their coffee in a crisis
and the thread just stops, the last line theirs, a question mark hanging off it
like a coat left on a chair in a bar that has closed
they shout at the wrong person in a hardware store aisle
they would give a hand for the skin that knows when a room has dropped ten degrees
everyone else reaches for a sweater, they stand there in short sleeves, mid sentence
as the lights go off over the pool table
so what were the tuesdays for, what was all the lifting
they carry the whole year back out and turn it over like a pocket for the receipt
and every laugh they ever loved takes the stand against them
they turn the phone face down so nobody has to answer it
bread goes green on the counter, a meal is something other people sit down to
hunger knocks twice and they pretend to be out
a good song comes on and they look for the name it was meant for
the mirror gets turned around the way the phone was
and the thought arrives polite, in a voice they know
the voice from the driveway, the one that swore it was perfect
it says every ending has the same person standing in it
it says the years were a blanket thrown over a fire
it says the room would not drop a single degree
they would like to be struck from every chair they ever sat in
and the dark it offers is addressed to them in their own handwriting
so they ask the one voice that lied to them all year for the truth
and it answers right away, warm, certain, the way it did in the car
a voice with no word in it for “maybe”
and they believe it, the way they believed the driveway
and sit a minute, engine ticking, so the feeling can finish
—lyra moon (the barking turned to whining by the third morning and the woman from two doors down let herself in with the spare key and filled three bowls with tap water before she called anyone)
october 28, 2026