Willow Kelley

I’m behind the bar,
finishing off my lungs
for the fourth time this evening,
watching you stumble toward the street,
an empty bottle clenched in your white knuckles.

You lose your conviction when the third cab ignores you,
not desperate enough to be the scene of your crime
when you can no longer hold your liquor.

I watch you slide down the bricks of the club,
and I feel my feet move toward you,
pushing the rock salt around, as if 
warning you of my approach.

Instead you watch me sink down next to you,
our first time face to face
in what feels like lifetimes.
I can feel you studying
as I fight with my lighter again,
and I think maybe I hear a thank you
slurring from your soaked lips,
dripping with alcohol in no way I’d ever seen.

I know it’s killing you to be this close,
and I offer my lighter to your own cigarette
as if to prove it’s killing me too.

I ask if you want a ride home, 
hold out my hand as a crutch,
and let you pick the tunes for old time’s sake.

We’re halfway home, and you haven’t sung a word.
I offer a series of meek reintroductions
like it hasn’t been forever since we’ve spoken.

Instead of humoring me, you burst into tears,
and through these sobs you stutter an apology
I never expected to hear from you.

You tell me you can see the stars tonight
for the first time since you left me.
I don’t bother sharing 
that I haven’t looked up since.

We’re long past your house now
as the sun starts to rise.

I’m kissing your cheeks like I used to.
For a second, everything stops.
I hear nothing but your shallow breathing
like a rhythm stuck in my head,
and I match it.

I watch the rays dance across your face
as you light a second cigarette,
and the wind shakes the flame.

You don’t ask why I brought you here,
we just watch the waves crawl to the sand
sticking our heads out the window
to feel the rising sun,
the same way we did the day we met.