…They pass through him.

Held against the light, the light doesn’t seem to take any notice of him. The light takes no notice, and neither does he. Passing through this life like question after question after empty, unheard question…

A parade, and the parade’s a suicide.

…

She holds his head in her lap. His arms wrap around her waist. He breathes:

In…

Out:

He hears her cry, he cries.

In:

He doesn’t know why he’s crying. She cries, he cries. Nothing passes without his immediate, parody response. Nothing that she does goes without his immediate, emotional rip-off reply.

A mimic.

Out…

Her body shifts, her tears stop. Her fingers slowly trace his spine, etching an outline of each vertebra with her long, unpainted nails.

He moves. His eyes clear up. He stares sideways, out towards the wall. A blank and empty expression canopies his façade. His direction hides his vapid gaze from her, obscures his total lack of being anything real or honest.

“I love you,” she whispers.

Starring at the wall, face filled with nothing:

“Ditto,” he says.

She laughs.

And,

She shouldn’t.

…

It all passes through him, unhindered, unchecked. Concepts are like particles, traveling through, available to see, but his eyes were closed.

His eyes are closed.

And even though her emotion, her want is so plain, so obvious, it slips past him and into oblivion.

Her voice is a falling tree in a forgotten forest that nobody ever visits, nobody ever hears…

…

She gently twists out from under him. Pulls him toward her pillow, to lie evenly and to gaze into his eyes…

“I’ll miss you,” her voice calm, but still choked, sadness still apparent.

“She’ll miss me?” he thinks to himself. Is he going somewhere? He looks past her, at a calendar and realizes that he is due back in school the next day. That he had to leave today. That he did not live here, but four hundred miles south. That today was Sunday, and that class started on Monday. That he needed to travel south in order to get home and sleep and wake and attend class.

It’s already late in the afternoon, and he won’t be home till early morning.

His blank, idiot’s expression melts into an anxious worry. Paradoxically, this empty movement makes her smile, makes her think that he feels it too. Confirms her love, while memories of him begin sinking deep inside of her, deep into the recesses of her sentiment…

He faintly wished she would let go of him, as he still needed to pack.

She held him tighter. Held him close to her. He held her back. He matched his breathing with hers,

In.

Numb.

Out.

Numb.

Gently, eyes filled with tears, heart and mind racing forward towards this voice, this conscious mind, this man with whom she would gladly melt and share and empty herself into…

In one breath, her eyes closed, she confesses:

“I love you.”

In one breath, his eyes closed, he echoes:

“I love you.”

…

She has a long night ahead of her. A long night for someone who paints herself inside someone else, looses that someone else, and can only dream and hope to see them, to see herself again…

Whereas,

He has a long drive ahead of him. A long drive for someone with nothing to think about…