The lights go down in a bruised heavy sweep

The lights go down in a bruised, heavy sweep.

For a second, the room is a charcoal cave

where the secrets we usually try to keep

feel a little less like things we have to save.

I’m sitting three rows from the very back.

My thumb finds a kernel in the velvet fold.

The world is a sudden and perfect black,

and the air in the theater is biting and cold.

No one can see if my eyes are wet.

No one can see the way my shoulders sag.

It’s the only quiet I’ve been able to get,

hidden away like a bone in a bag.