In the absence of all the effort sitting up straight Our eyes learned to return to stares I offered so little then Cause that’s what I thought you would have said
Spent all evening long Debasing back to still retracing our missteps
I concede to relent
It wasn’t “I didn’t mean” It’s “I misrepresented” And over again You said you feel fine
There was no mess we left I already added back And still I waited there (there was nothing there)
You offered nothing And I did the same to protest (learned to stop sleeping on the floor) We never held so much in Everyone was waiting
Waited up watching the ceiling Wondered if I would see just when the dream started But I fell asleep
Said you watched the ceiling, Think ours both look the same? (it wasn’t working) Honest, you expected when I lied, “I feel fine”
You came to this conclusion the same way I did (it was hopeless) Is the sky so doomed to deny us our shadows?
I was our breath saved You were arête I was our plans laid We were ill-conceived I was in the way I was the darkness Backdrop of your window Tried to decipher its shape without ever facing it
Maybe there was something holding us up Something that positioned us where we are Stuck so close together So we made no difference
Measured progress by how little we’ve changed Measuring our strain by the ways we’re still the same Then, in the absence of each other, Slowly our shoulders settled “on our knees, we made it hard to breathe.”