You Say I Say

You say you are standing alone in the middle of a vast emptiness that stretches as far as you can see. There are no signs of life. Only a grainy blue sea that moves around you like some kind of drunken ocean. Around you but not me. The word you used, I believe, was... desolate.

I say you are in a waiting room full of people. Your mother is talking to the woman at the desk. And on the bench under the clock is an Italian family. They all have brown eyes. They are looking at us.

You say you are standing alone in a barren landscape.

You have scanned the blue emptiness countless times and found nothing.

You have raised your voice to the ceiling of the vast expanse and it has held no recognition.

I say you are in a waiting room full of people. And I am holding your right hand. We are all watching the woman at the desk. Her shoes sigh as she moves about. It is exactly 3:10 in the morning.

You say you are standing alone.

What is this loneliness that you feel?

What is this loneliness that you cannot seem to shake?

You say you are standing alone in the blue tinge of an unfixed photo. And the only voices you hear are grainy and urgent and grate across your soul in a series of moving lines like sandbars. You have stopped calling out because you called out and your voice never came back.

And I say you are in a waiting room full of people. We are all looking at the clock. And now the woman at the desk is speaking to your mother. The Italian family is looking at you.

I go to the window and look out at the darkness.