There’s a strange lull in the conversation like you forgotten your lines
the second act after the first that places us in the situation of
you: tongue tied, unsure, and unbrilliant (if there was such a word)

Then something hits me
and I watch you with a sudden incandescent point of view
the way you meander toward safer waters in staccato formation
picking up speed with no aim nor direction
foresight and headlights absent making the crash seem
inevitable

The monologue is left hanging in the air
butchered and bleeding, tension frozen behind your neck
and you don't know what to do with your hands
I wait

Time trips, doors slam, and you stutter out a smile
giving out a detached laugh,
-but not before checking
if it was okay.

the mood splatters.