You across the table tonight, features blurred by the light of the candle, disappointment softened by wine, and me trying to remember that feeling of home we once had, trying to find a way back to when we made sense, you and I. 

The chill on the bottle of white warms, the oysters recede, sweaty and limp, into  their shells, and all that comes to mind is that, as much as we may intend it or want it or reach for it, we can’t seem to do anything right by each other, you and I.

And dinner is ruined before it starts. 

Why do we do things we don’t want to do? To don the mask, plaster the smile, bite our tongue when the truth so wants to be released — isn’t all of this, in the end, a disservice?

To me, to you, to truth itself?

I didn’t want to go to dinner tonight, not really. I was exhausted and cranky and would have preferred to go for a run in the Presidio or sit beside the lake and just… do nothing but be a witness to the darkening water and fading sky. 

And to let this be enough.

But it’s been a minute since things were good between us, you and I. Or really, it’s been since forever, if we are speaking truth.

But what if the mask slips and the smile dissolves? And what if the truth finds its way up and out and into the open?

What then? 

We’ve stood a long time on the shores of our darkening waters. If we stay much longer, the light will fade from our sky for good. 

And then what?

If you reached for my hand in this darkness, would you find it? 

— From the diary

You across the table tonight, features blurred by the light of the candle, disappointment softened by wine, and me trying to remember that feeling of home we once had, trying to find a way back to when we made sense, you and I. 

The chill on the bottle of white warms, the oysters recede, sweaty and limp, into  their shells, and all that comes to mind is that, as much as we may intend it or want it or reach for it, we can’t seem to do anything right by each other, you and I.

And dinner is ruined before it starts. 

Why do we do things we don’t want to do? To don the mask, plaster the smile, bite our tongue when the truth so wants to be released — isn’t all of this, in the end, a disservice?

To me, to you, to truth itself?

I didn’t want to go to dinner tonight, not really. I was exhausted and cranky and would have preferred to go for a run in the Presidio or sit beside the lake and just… do nothing but be a witness to the darkening water and fading sky. 

And to let this be enough.

But it’s been a minute since things were good between us, you and I. Or really, it’s been since forever, if we are speaking truth.

But what if the mask slips and the smile dissolves? And what if the truth finds its way up and out and into the open?

What then? 

We’ve stood a long time on the shores of our darkening waters. If we stay much longer, the light will fade from our sky for good. 

And then what?

If you reached for my hand in this darkness, would you find it? 

— From the diary