Poetry: Almost

This is a record of nearly.

Photo by Mark mc neill on Unsplash

You arrive as a half-finished sentence

Leaning on the doorframe of my patience

Smelling of rain and someone else’s laugher.

I let you in. I always let you in.

You talk in riddles. I answer in riddled silence,

We orbit the truth like it’s a live wire

sparking whenever I get too close

to asking what we are.

Your touch is a promise written in pencil,

smudged before it ever settles.

I keep rewriting the ending

as if graphite could turn into ink.

Nights with you taste of counterfeit sweetness.

You’re a sugar packet swapped for salt.

I swallow anyway, pretending

not to flinch when the bitterness hits.

You say you’re not good at labels.

You’re excellent at exits, though.

You slip out of meaning

before the moment can name you.

And when you leave again,

Because you always leave again,

I’m left with the ghost of the man

who mouths at me: “almost”.