I stay in the grey town

A random phrase from a poet, like an earworm—and not because I’ve read the poem,
but because I’ve seen the despair—makes me realise that ‘nice’ wasn’t all that good;

in fact, it wasn’t good at all, and yet I still remember you asking if it was enough for me
to read one book, listen to one song, fall for one person, or at least pretend to, and so on,

in order to satisfy what for you hardly constituted seeking to live one’s life. Perhaps
that’s why you took the bus one morning to wherever the driver promised to take you.

The warmth of another arm

My bed is too small even for me, let alone another person—or maybe it’s just my life
that has shrunk somewhere along the way—yet when I wake up in the middle of the night,
I instinctively reach out for the warmth of another arm, knowing we’re not all that different
from mayflies.