Page 83 of Blood and Trouble

I sipped the liquor and prayed it took away my worries.

“Talk to me,” I said. “Distract me.”

“About?” Poe rested his elbow on his knee and ran his index finger over his eyebrow.

“Anything,” I said. “Tell me about your poetry.”

He laughed sarcastically. “Nice try.”

“C’mon.” I tucked my knees to my chest and hugged my shins, resting my chin on top. “We can play poker and trade secrets if it’ll make you feel better.”

“Last time I played poker with you, I ended up with my head between your legs,” he said. “Not that I’m complaining, but I learned my lesson.”

I tilted my head and grinned. “How about we just trade secrets then?”

“Okay,” he said. “You first.”

“I already asked you for one of yours.” I pretended to be demure. “It’s my game, so I make the rules.”

“Alright, greedy,” he said. “What do you want to know about it?”

“Read me one.” I was treading on thin ice. Poe already said he didn’t let others read his work, but I thought that had more to do with his own opinions of his art than those of others.

He licked his lips and pulled the bottom one between his teeth before he nodded once and reached for his journal, flipping through a few pages before settling and brushing his fingers down the center of the lines. Reverently. Like they were his prayers to a deity that would never answer.

“The Shape of Absence.” He cleared his throat before returning his focus to his work.

I have memorized the shape of every room I was not supposed to be in.

The way a doorway holds the negative space of the one who almost stayed.

The familiar silence of a table set for two when I’m the one who counted wrong.

I learned early that joy is a language I can read but cannot speak without an accent.

Everyone hears it. No one says anything.

I was fluent in absence before I knew the word for it.

A blank spot on a permission slip with no one important to sign it.

An empty mattress imprint from someone who used to sleep there.

A lip print on a glass from the one who swallowed whiskey like I swallowed their gasps.

The ache is not proof of wrongness.

The wanting is not the same as taking.

A man can stand outside a lit window in the cold and call it choice

But he is afraid of what happens when he knocks, and someone answers.

I knocked once.

The door opened.

I ran.