Not Tonight

Day Twenty-one of Thirty Days of Writing

Shawn McDaniel
Aug 9, 2017 · 1 min read
Photo by Shawn McDaniel

I came here to see you wonderful oh

Who am I kidding, I can’t even write

Your name anymore, anyways, it’s all

Been said, here and gone, there’s nothing

I’d like to say — just to sit with you

Is enough for me, like an elderly couple

Out to dinner, their special place

Can you imagine forty years with some

One and still the audacity to speak

As if she hadn’t heard that one before

I can be cruel, I am well aware

But by this time they are at the table

The same table for a thousand times

A single candle flickering before their

Heavy eyes laced with time

Soup growing cold, hands

Swollen with cramps and scars

Entwined in one another’s

Both staring out the window

Without the slightest quiver of lips

Both staring out into the night

And the night returns their stares.

One day I will find the right words

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