it must have a lot to do with the conversations. on the last 24 hours we didn’t have yet, before a flight was cancelled and rebooked, before you try and fit in seven months of self into bags, i watched not with wonder but distance: your back was turned to me as you washed the dishes, 10 beers between us, you tell me to stay put. your word upon word upon word become a slow reveal, weighing heavier and heavier because it took long enough, though it wasn’t the length of time at all, as it was the time it took. to wrap our heads around the weight of us on the bed, at the tables between us, at the photos that captured distance. when you finally sit beside me, it’s a coming out of sorts, in a restaurant with no love, where you insist: a camera would gaze at us and know romance from the beginning. i don’t tell you why i can’t believe that, there’s just no time. instead there’s last night, when we breached distance, in the darkness, the digital clock the bright light counting down, the words: premature / presumptuous / continue / stay the night. we sleep with the discomfort of the following day’s doom, we wake and buy another day. we wonder about promises. it was over soon enough.