In your old Honda we were having two different conversations. Both flicking pain-coated words about breaking and blame over our teeth into the dank air as pulpy rain licked your windows, lost in translation. It is the New Year. I have no idea if you kissed someone else at midnight. We might, it turns out, not know anything about each other. (Except— I know some days you wish you could erase yourself and that you finally scattered your father’s ashes among the Joshua trees and when we fuck you hope I don’t hear it when you call me *baby *) Language is connective tissue and it once felt as if our cells were made to only speak to one another. But sitting in those worn cloth seats where your fingers used to slip between my thighs I wonder did you hear anything when my desperate string of sentences hurtled through the damp dusk because they seemed to disintegrate as soon as they reached you. All I could feel from your mouth were bullets. I used to listen to you breathe; got so good at deciphering your silences that I learned what the weary shift in your shoulders really meant whenever you went home. But I could never read your mind. And you could never fully grasp me even though your tongue knew my body better than anyone else; even when I had splayed myself so open. Looks like our secret notes engraved with promises in permanent marker Committed love life with you were just torn pieces of paper after all A fortress of a body you throw your head back and snap defeatedly: *what else do you want me to say * Everything, my eyes beg, say Everything. I want to grab your— instead I open your door. It is a new year. Or I want to grab your hand instead I open your door. It is a new year. Or I open your door. It is a new year. Or I am still waiting for your final word.