Ink-Stained Bravery

The table is long and the coffee is cold.

You’re watching the street through the gap in the blind.

There are things that are simply too sharp to be told,

that get tangled and stuck in the back of the mind.

I clicked the pen cap. The sound was a shot.

You didn't look back, and I didn't speak up.

I just watched the way that the porcelain got

a ring of brown sludge at the base of your cup.

I’m writing it now while the pencil still bites,

leaving a dent in the side of my finger.

It’s easier here, in the dim, quiet lights,

where the ghosts of the things I can't say get to linger.