standing staring did i just say that out loud your face twisted in disbelief or maybe relief that finally our apathy is in the middle of the room instead of lurking in the shadows fearing our footfalls as we dance around each other side by side but not together any more but out in the middle it shrinks to nothing fades away like fog a vapor that is and then is not and no transition to jar the memory a ghost just like our affection and our words the weather work your petty peeves and my inconsistencies we are grown into strangers before our very eyes but oh so slowly and so deadly like gas that seeps in through the door we left ajar when we stopped praying together before loving in the dark under the comforter that no longer does

razor's edge i think but it's not it's a ledge the size of the highway and we built it brick by brick poured out the concrete and smoothed it carefully because we thought it might bear up under the weight of the things we never say and never liked to say when we did say, we thought our wordlessness was intimacy, growing together through togetherness uncomplicated by the clutter of words and cemented with small strokes along the skin in the middle of your back, still smooth and warm but no longer so close desirable or available

we walk away it's not worth fighting we tell ourselves even though it's probably the only thing in the world worth fighting over and i feel myself sliding bleeding severed in twain by the thing we did not say