But there was also the night we walked through
a front door left open by a man we knew
would not be home. A radio in the kitchen
rained light murmurs through the hallway
where we stood waiting to be caught.
We once imagined being young meant forever
chasing the day we would no longer
harm ourselves, to speak to each other
in a language translated from our injuries.
From the entryway, unopened letters
lay visible across the dining room table.
We opened them because we could,
wanting to discover a woman as desperate
as we hoped to become, a car left running
in the driveway should we need to escape,
the house we found by following him
home from work urging us further inside.
We knew better than to seek out
the bedroom, too afraid to open a door
that might serve as a mirror of our lives—
an empty room save for the bed, a man awake
through the night, humming, reading, alone.
