Killing with kindness....
the conversations were stilted...staccato. Fair weather and vanilla.
Clenched.
Rote.
Benign.
Loosened hands that had once grasped were now empty palms...
The airwaves carried no hint of desire, no secret knowing smile. No wink or slight nod. He may have even dialed a wrong number...but then her voice appeared and he knew it was hers...knew it like you knew the taste from a bottle high up behind the bartender. You knew.
He knew.
In a world where she had brushed against him and intertwined...she now skirted across him like the long extended branches of high weeds, just glancing against him and moving on. Not staying...not lingering or loitering.
Brushing away. Lightly.
He folded up their conversations like wooden scaffolding that had once held them up, once constructed their connection. Once joined their pieces. But was now just the wooden parts that collapsed in the middle and folded like tent poles...to be broken down, tied together and stacked and arranged so delicately neatly. Never really revealing what they once were and what they wouldn't be again.
With the irony of his reaction to seeing the name on the incoming call...he knew the politeness that would ensue.
Reconnected strangers running into each other at the market.
Business people recognizing each other in the airport.
You'd never imagine the times they had held each other in a dark. You couldn't tell from the conversation.
No comments:
Post a Comment