We knew there was an expiration date,
immediate asset depreciation
from the first four-hour conversation
in the liminal midnight haze
of a long-emptied parking garage
with hope only for a pleasant past-tense
when looking at the crash through a flattened lens
called the other side of being friends,
where our talk thins
into simple “how are you”s again and again.
When you met him
and the sacred split,
as the safety went
to a life where we could never exist again
in the sanctuary space of twilight grays
where we used to take our inner pain to exchange
but now there is no exchange and only pain.
But now did we give too much in
to sharing our shame and our silence and sin,
as we compared all the inward crimes we committed,
laying them on each other’s heart brick by brick,
long past our frail, merely friendly limits?
Such a concentrated trace bleach stain
(which might have cleaned some past life
if only given any length of time)
infused deep upon the pretty surface
of the white-washed tombs for our brains.
different faces 