Distance

Have you ever heard her cry on the phone? you know crying in person, talking in person you even know her voice over the phone the breaths she takes the pauses in conversation she makes as she shifts in her bed, trying to get comfortable her laugh her sigh you can tell when she is making that face the face that says that you are the most ridiculous person she has ever met you know how phone conversations go but you have not heard her cry over the phone and there is something all new about that because it more than the pain she feels it is more than tears streaming down her face that you cannot see it is more than her heart beating through her chest ripping out of its body through the skin into the air pounding, pounding filling the whole room with a tension it has never known, tightening, tightening because it is also the distance between you the uncertainty the fear the distance the distance the distance it is the sharper breaths, coming at intervals you have not memorized it is her cracked voice, moving in and out of key and the notes that used to make up the symphonies in your head are now lyrics you cannot remember it is the look on her face that you just don’t know and you can only imagine and put together some sort of fragmented blurry half-hearted half-done half-imagined half-lost half-felt image until all you have are the halves because you are also half yourself and she is half and the two of you are separated by distance and there is nothing but static between you