Nine Attempts

Continuing our journal submission graveyard theme, here is another piece that is unlikely to find a home out there. Now it lives here, with us.

Nine Attempts

You: reading Camus on the bus.
Me: holding myself inside my own seams.
We never looked up. I still inventory strangers for you.

—

You: tucked a note into a returned library book.
Me: left it blinking in the dark.
I keep it in my wallet and it hums up my spine.

—

You: wore grief like a high-visibility vest.
Me: recognized the uniform.
We nodded, two emergency exits disguised as men.

—

You: said you didn’t believe in signs.
Me: wrote this anyway.
In case you decided signs were allowed after all.

—

You: smelled like cinnamon and winter storms.
Me: followed you for two blocks, pretending I was headed that way.
Even now, every first snow pulls your scent through the streets.

—

You: mouthed “Are you okay?” across the bar.
Me: nodded, leaking smoke through the cracks.
I was a structure already condemned.

—

You: dropped your wallet in the rain.
Me: picked it up and kept walking.
Your kids still stare up at me from a cracked plastic frame.

—

You: stopped your car and asked if I needed anything.
Me: said no with my mouth and yes with my whole body.
Your headlights were the last search party that ever found me.

—

You: reached out first.
Me: let it ring, hands full of splinters.
I flinch when the dead number rings inside my chest.