Hollow

Subtle tones of writers block were touching the air around you the night that you met her one last time. The darting eyes that told a million truths while all your mouth tongued were lies; silent silences made up for all those times that laughter had escaped you two inside the back seat of that coffee scented paradise. Inside the painters cup were nothing but a mixture of things that made honesty inescapable and falsities taste like ambrosia. But blues and rhythm sounded less like your heart beat than they used to, and so the sinking dailies that watched you walking from the top of the street lamps had begun to turn them off when you passed too, but less out of respect and more from a slightly sweat tinged shame. Buttons to hold and buttons to hide the way that your skin cannot retain a scar to save its life, much less hers, and so all the times she tried to undo them, they always bound themselves back up at the removal of her touch. Minty and sugary and wet; that's how she imagines you would have tasted if you had ever managed to close the space that she created in order to protect her soul from the pain you inflicted on her anyway. She only wanted to love you. Was that so wrong? But the paint stains had covered up the ink ones and she knew, as she watched you taint the sky with pools and rings of smokey hatred, that she had lost you a few days before. And in spite of herself, she wept.