Better Nights

In a stupor, kinder conversations
take flight from our minds, our lips
are shells of the same blackness
as the space above us.

Do we even know where we go,
Do our feet hear the same voices
that tell us we are doomed --
All we want is to escape.

There is something about us,
something about the heaviness
in our footsteps, the softness
of the rain against our skulls,

The coldness of the air,
The unwarranted warmth at contact
from another human being;
The words only we can understand.

We wait for our time
in patience; the seldom tap of the foot
against our silence is cacophony.
I do not know love, but --