When all is said and done, the moon slivered from an orb to a crescent,
the dishes put away, the faucet turned off, the last cigarette crushed under heel,
there is silence so deep even the ocean floor strains to hear it.
And you think, sitting on this empty bed, about the hand you once knew,
the fingerprints whose swirls you memorized like your own,
and the space left behind by this hand, what it did to itself,
what life does to the people who end theirs by free will.
You try to remember the hand’s smell, something like apricot
mixed with sweat and sea salt, but eventually you remember it so well
that it never comes back.
And the night still drones on, and strangers still eat dinner alone,
and you do now as well, never having known
what a lonely thing an empty chair is.
There are constellations you will never learn the names of.
There are languages you will never speak a word of.
There are people in your life you will never see again, like this one,
people you would see in a dream and tug on their sleeve,
saying, Come back, I can’t do this alone,
without even realizing
that they were always doing it alone,
and that’s why they ended everything.