Short Shorts

I caught his eye, and held it long enough to break open a floodgate of emotions.

—like monsters under your bed, which are never really there, but very real in your mind—

I thought I had become immune, hardened.
But I cried today,
for you.

I saw it in his eyes.
He was finished.
Had reached the end of his rope.

Do I dare ask,
“Why can I not accept you as you are?”

We were in a narrow entrance to a bar, caught between two doors.

In the back alley—in the alcove—hidden from the public eye by the dumpster, I find it.

I am afraid you are going to do it.
And you are afraid of doing it.

It was like looking at a drawing in progress, a child’s drawing, from very close up. I was bent over it, watching the lines take shape.