We sat in the car outside the hospice with the engine off and the air going sour,
your mascara making nervous rivers while my hands shook
so hard I dropped the keys in my lap again and again
You laughed this broken little laugh that sounded half like choking and half
like a skipped drumbeat, then you wiped your nose on my sleeve
and told me you were too tired to stand up straight anymore
We walked in slow motion through those sliding doors,
coffee breath and bleach in the hallway,
nurses drifting past like ghosts with clipboards and dead eyes
that had seen this a thousand times
You pressed your shoulder into mine
while the doctor rearranged words for dying into softer shapes,
and every syllable landed between us
like bricks in a wall we were suddenly building together without asking
if we wanted the house
Later that night in the kitchen you sat on the floor in your funeral skirt,
back against the cupboard, staring through the fridge
like it owed you answers it would never give
I poured whiskey into chipped mugs, knocked one over with my elbow,
watched it crawl along the linoleum
like a slow brown apology for all the shit none of us could fix
You reached for my wrist, gripped it so tight your nails left moons in my skin,
whispering you did not want platitudes or soft-focus lessons
or some cheap silver lining tied on with a bow from a greeting card aisle
You wanted someone who smelled like sweat and cigarettes and hospital soap,
someone close enough to hear every muffled howl in your chest without
asking you to translate it into tidy sentences for their comfort
We do not light candles for closure,
we flick ash into the sink and let the smoke burn our eyes
while we lean our foreheads together and tell the truth with our breathing
We do not say it will be alright,
we say this hurts like a car wreck in slow motion and we swear and we shake
and we hold on to whatever part of each other we can reach when the room spins
You cry into my shirt until it is stiff with salt,
I curse into your hair until my throat scrapes raw, two mouths on one wound,
sharing the sting so it does not own either of us alone
If there is anything close to love here it lives in the way we sit in the wreckage together,
no polished speeches, just your hand in mine
while the absence keeps howling through the walls
In bed you turned your back to me
and I could feel the tremors under your shoulder blades,
tiny earthquakes from all the words you would not let out
where the world could see
I slid closer till my chest fit against your spine, not to fix a damn thing,
just to be a warm barricade between you
and the next memory trying to kick down the door of your sleep
We did not kiss like movie stars or write some perfect script on each other’s skin,
we just tangled bare legs and clung hard enough to bruise
while the ceiling fan carved circles in the dark
You whispered their name into the pillow, then mine, then nothing,
and in that heavy silence I understood that what we were holding was not hope,
not even healing yet, just the right to keep breathing side by side in a house
that suddenly felt three sizes too big
We do not light candles for closure,
we flick ash into the sink and let the smoke burn our eyes
while we lean our foreheads together and tell the truth with our breathing
We do not say it will be alright,
we say this hurts like a car wreck in slow motion and we swear and we shake
and we hold on to whatever part of each other we can reach when the room spins
You cry into my shirt until it is stiff with salt,
I curse into your hair until my throat scrapes raw, two mouths on one wound,
sharing the sting so it does not own either of us alone
If there is anything close to love here it lives in the way we sit in the wreckage together,
no polished speeches, just your hand in mine
while the absence keeps howling through the walls
Some nights we still fight over dishes or money or bullshit traffic,
we throw sharp words like bottles in the hallway
and walk away shaking with old hunger and new rage
Then one of us will step on a memory left lying around and suddenly we are back in
that waiting room, back in that parking lot,
back in that stupid kitchen where nothing tasted like food for weeks
We do not apologize pretty, we just sag into each other on the couch with the television muttering in the
background and let our ribs line up again,
two damaged cages learning how to share the same wild animal
Your fingers trace the map of my scars,
mine rest on the hollow under your throat
where you swallowed every goodbye they never got to hear,
and we stay there until the noise in our heads
drops from a scream to a low steady burn
If that is love, it is ugly and honest and held together with swearing and sweat
and late night phone calls from the edge, and I will take it, sitting here with you,
while the missing piece stays missing and the world does not give a single shit