I can’t cross over bridges without holding my breath- I keep a match in the glove box just in case. You once told me how the miles between us would never be an excuse. Then your brain stopped working how it used to- confessed how much your secrets scare you. I said the streetlight at the top of the cul-de-sac still flickers- like it’s sending you a signal to come home. You said the weather isn’t much different where you’re at, but it always feels like nighttime.

Silence grows and echos and builds until the nothingness somehow becomes deafening in its own, twisted way.

You show up in the distance, somehow. I can feel your angst and it smells like gasoline. I beg you not to do it- not to threaten me with embers. You have the gasoline and I have the match and the bridge between our town and you is the only thing connecting us. Last night, I watched the snow cover the stars. I reached for the match until I realized my pocket was empty. I watched the whole fucking bridge burn. -AMT ©️