Soft Strategies

Fine. Just regular hate then.

Lingering in the lobby. Waiting for that cruel elevator. Life. Plenty of floors in the building. Not enough places.

Pressing the buttons. Numbers and all. As if those places could be named. As if once you'd been there you could return again. Enter the code and reclaim all that is gone.

Or never was.

the vine. The grape. no wine.

Bitter enough to rearrange this face.

Imagining how I know them. Wondering if they ever did.

Knowing the answers is not enough. Give me the question.

I miss how it feels. How it wastes in my hand. That dying snowlfake as the season passes. And those lies befriend us. Waving like pale flags at the top of their poles.

Telling us we were lucky to have known.

Maybe we were.

It's only paper afterall.

I didn't want to lose them, but I couldn't let them keep me.