i cannot remember the last conversation we never had. it was around a fire, a summer night, with bugs of lightning and flies of blood fussing around us, infatuated as they were with my left shoulder. i cannot remember what we talked about as you may not have been there. you were elsewhere or in my thoughts, moving on to the rhythms of my undercurrents.
the house was behind us, or more so behind me. the living room light was still on, bright and unwavering. there was a pair of black pants on the living room floor. we could see them through the murky windows, like a sleeping dog lying. i do not know what the pants were doing there all crumpled up by the sofa. they were not yours. they could have been mine, though it is hard to tell when we quietly discard and leave so many things behind.
sitting by the fire with the flies and the embers doubling as lightning, i thought about the conversation we were not having, the one i would not remember. i flipped over my left hand and looked at the lines. a bit of ash landed at the cross of fate and heart. you took your right hand out of your pocket and flicked away the lint that had gathered inside your black pants, the ones you were not wearing. your pressed your forefinger on the ashes, smearing them further into my palm. in the hollow of my hand lay the thickness of your absence. i scattered the dust away, until only your absence remained.