a few words left
on the table.

there is a point in the night where the cars stop completely. the sodium light doesn't care whether anyone is watching; it just keeps burning against the frost, humming at fifty hertz until the morning buses start again.

sound travels differently when nobody is speaking. you start hearing the dust against the speaker grille, the floorboards settling in their foundations, the gentle hiss of rain hitting the kitchen vent. a quiet that feels occupied.

if you play a cassette enough times, the magnetic iron rubs off against the playback head. the hiss grows louder, the voices soften, until all that's left is the warm sound of time passing through plastic spools.

i wonder about the people who leave their third-floor lamps lit until four. whether they're finishing something they love, or just unable to lay down the weight of another day. we never meet, but we share the same silent avenue.

the low rumble of freight trains two miles away, vibrating through the pillow. steel wheels against wet iron tracks in the dark. it's comforting proof that somewhere out there, things are still moving forward.

i still rehearse sentences to people who haven't walked into this room in years. questions left hanging in the doorway, apologies that lost their timing. words sound different when whispered to empty wallpaper.

tomorrow it will rain again. cold, steady rain that pools beneath the park benches and turns the street into a dark mirror. days like that make it easy to stay inside and let the tape run to the end of the reel.

we take pictures so we don't have to carry the whole weight of remembering. but the paper fades first, curling at the corners like dry leaves. what survives isn't the image, but the feeling of standing behind the lens.