we'd move from the shadows of the wall

Precise cuts. Deliberate wounding. Never arm someone with the weapons to use against you, it's a rule. But I've never been able to function that way.



There was contention. I felt there was an argument to come. And I pushed. Knowing the likely outcome, I pushed. And then...

"Goodbye."



I've never had a rational relationship to that word. I can hear it if I know it means for right now. I can hear it if it's just leavetaking, temporary, no sense of permanence.

I cannot deal with it if I think it relates to an ending. Because it becomes permanence in that moment, for me.



I'm too literal. It's been a fault for a while. But I'd also passed out heavy arms, precision rounds, scattered mines to deploy in my wake. I wasn't the one who armed them. That was never my choice.





Over. It's over. It's over. And I hadn't figured out what it was in the first place...