Ali Flake

The sadness crept up slowly.

But it’s not enough. Not until every last shred of hope is torn away, out of my life, out of this town.

I think about those words often, wondering where they would go, where they could go.

An intense loneliness takes over me the second the temperature drops. It’s unsettling, the way I can be surrounded by people but still feel as if I’m alone.

Every glance had a purpose, but we refused to see it.

You were gone, but I could still smell the way you were in the morning before the baptismal droplets of shower water washed away the sins of the night before.

As I sat by the water, I wondered what you were thinking right at that moment.