you did not tell me you love me before you went to sleep. we say it every night, these nights. most every night. but we had a jolly evening, a good evening. we felt close, aligned in the flying of the wine. and perhaps this is why, tonight, you did not feel the need for the call and response, the confirmation.
so you lost the thread, lying next to me, reading your book. a comforting predictability - you will pick both up again in the morning, as usual. and as usual, i am left, holding my thread, my nocturnal movements. i tried writing in complete sentences this time. i force myself to sew together these stabs of imagery, for you and for you, to define for once the negative spaces they connect. some of them.
and it is a blessing to fall asleep suddenly, to slip unself-observed under rest. in this way you avoid the subtle play, the game, to keep the fear away, this by neither thinking about nor thinking about not. thread the string through the needle before setting it down. don't worry about the copper wound winding down, the thinner sound, keep the fractions of an inch optimal to sing out the overtones keep away from those inhibitions that buzz by 1/8th turns and not hurt my hands and keep them dextrous and how easy it is to slip into the slide of follow on and amplitude rising. you stop the loop by letting it wash over you. ideally you do this before adrenaline pitch.
and will it be this way when we die? when we'll lose the thread for a final time? and could the scale even bear my heart, and all that i elide? will i know what you were reading, and why didn't i ask? will i or not have the time to wonder, or to say that i love you, or that i loved all, or some of all of this, too? did we have a good night, together? and do we pick up these threads, somewhere, together, again?
and i forget to say it too, when finally i set it down to sleep.