Tuesday had jokes.

Bill Burr loud enough
     to make the whole room
     feel less guilty

     for being ridiculous.

And there we were again:

Us.

Capital U.
Easy laugh.
Same voltage.

Like the old rhythm
     had only stepped out for a smoke

     and was finally back at the table.

Then you stayed.
The whole... fucking... night.

Which, for the record,
       is not how a man
       with a history of over-reading things

       is supposed to receive information.

Wednesday opened its hand too,
          and I took the whole thing.

Morning,
        afternoon,
                 that soft extra time
                 that makes a person stupid

                 in the most defensible way.

But—

By game time,
   the clock had teeth.

Braves/Sox waiting.
      Seats cooling.

You left to get ready,
    and I tried to trust
    the version of time

    that works for normal people.

Unfortunately, (fortunately?)
               we're not normal people.

We're two calendars
       in a trench coat
       _pretending_ to be a plan.

So I did the math
     nobody wants to do…

     not while hope is still putting on makeup.

I gave the tickets away. (fuck. me.)

Deebo got Braves/Sox.
Doug got plausible deniability.
Irby's got another footnote.

And us?

We got whatever the hell
           happened next.

I won't write the fight.

Not here.

Not because it didn't matter,
    but because it matters too much
            to flatten into evidence.

I know my side.
You know yours.

The room knows
    where the glass almost cracked.

Now it's Saturday.

I was supposed to be in the air right now—
                                 PV bound,
              chasing that salt and reset.

I pushed the flight to tomorrow.

Bought myself an extra twenty-four hours
                to just sit in the quiet

        and let the dust actually settle.

Because packing this kind of silence into a carry-on?

That'd ruin a perfectly good beach.

And the thread is bare.

No dots.
No mercy emoji.

No accidental reel
   pretending not to be a hand
               on the doorknob.

Just three days
     of the phone being a phone

     which is rude, honestly.

A device with that many cameras
      should be able to show me
              what not to think.

The page is bare too.

Same white box.

Same stupid cursor.

Same old me
     trying not to turn silence
     into a courtroom.

I keep reaching
  for the joke first,
  because the joke knows how to enter a room
                 without asking for too much.

But underneath it:

I miss Tuesday.

I miss Wednesday
  before the clock got sharp.

I miss the version of us
  that knew how to sit close
  without bracing for weather.

And yes,
        I know.

Three-day cooldown.

I don't have to enjoy
  being a manila folder
          marked Pending.

So I won't knock.

I won't pull the thread
  just to prove it still reaches.

I won't make my weather
        your assignment.

I'll sit here instead,
     with the bare thread,
     the bare page,
     the little fibers catching light wrong,

     and try to remember:

     worn thin is not the same as gone.

Quiet is not always goodbye.

And a thread this stubborn
           must still know
               how to hold.